


Evolutionary Linguistics

by orphan_account



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Angst, Band Fic, Blow Jobs, Break Up, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Suicide, Slow Build, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-19
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:16:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 79,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Japanese, "-go" is used to describe language in literal translation as something spoken between five or more people. This is one language; a story of unknowing people closest to you, and discovering a new dynamic. Told in 2-part rounds among the whole band.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eulogy of the Upheaval

**Author's Note:**

> This fic feels old as the hills but I still can't feel too shabby about it. It had a pretty good reception when it was first posted, so I thought I would move it here. (I uploaded this puppy straight from LJ, so if there are any weird errors or little notes left in that don't belong here, please drop me a line and let me know?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part and the next are told from Kaoru's point of view.

For a year I couldn’t look at Die, couldn’t see his stupid grinning fucking face and not hate him, but now it’s better. Now we talk. Now we’re the friends and symbiotic musical relationship we should have been probably all along, but the shit he put me through still makes my skin crawl when I see that thing he has become wash over his face.

No no, that’s a little too sudden, isn’t it? You need more information than that...

My name is Niikura Kaoru and I am a musician. The "I would die if I couldn’t play guitar, and practice until my fingers bleed" variety. Ando Daisuke (Die, for short, though I am one of the few that calls him by his full name) is also a musician, but to him, it’s mostly just fun. When we first met, we were just squeaking past twenty, and I could play about six chords, which meant I thought I was hot shit. Die could play covers of some American metal songs, so that made him pretty hot shit, too. We just talked here and there for about a year, at first, both too intimidated by each other, always wanting to be the best and feeling, the both of us, to have fallen short, but when Kyo barged into our lives and told us we should all be in a band together, we decided we could stop being such assholes about the whole thing and get along. Make some good music.

Well, decent music. Music that when I listen to it now, I hear the things I write into my pieces presently, and the rest is very novice, very ambitious young men trying to be something they eventually became, but weren’t yet.

I actually forget where in the hell Shinya came from. Osaka, of course, but I, nor any of the rest of us, really remember where we met him, who we knew him through, how we found out he played drums, etc… He insists he knew our old mutual friend Tokira, who died several years back in a house fire, but none of us remember Toki knowing Shinya. Of all of us, he wins the “most consistent” award. He has set a rhythm for us that was unique and heavy enough from the very start and it is thanks to his contributions to our music that we have kept a common thread in the albums throughout the years, making them string together. Truly, he is, and has always been, an amazing man.

But he was 19, then, and I was twenty-two, and Kisaki was the biggest shit-hole of a person I had ever met in my life, but because he was passionate and pretentious I, naïve and having been raised sheltered, thought he was learned of the business and dedicated to the hard work and sacrifice this industry requires. Turns out, he would rather have an elitist sense of dignity than actually make money doing what he loves, for people that love it, playing in venues all around the world. When I talk to him now, the occasional run-in at music festivals and the like, I try very hard not to laugh in his face, and then I remember how indispensable and a joy Toshiya really is.

For three albums, we took the framework of what we liked and what could sell in Japan and applied our own concepts; my more classic composition style, Kyo’s raw performance, the ever-present tonal fix of darkness, and sadness, but release and catharsis in expressing all of this. We, though it was not until years later that we even knew this of each other, we all came from our own microcosmic hells and wanted nothing more than to share that pain, and the joy of no longer living in it, with the world. It went over well, and as the years passed, we slowly started to shed that framework, leaving all the things that were just us, our music, our style, our message. At first, everyone wanted the framework more than the substance, and whole portions of our fan base turned their backs on us, calling us sell-outs, telling us we were trying too hard to be like American bands, that we were changing our style, our looks.

I cut my hair.

Fuck them. I cut it all off. I had started growing my hair when I was sixteen, and I told my mother she could kiss my fucking ass, I wasn’t her little boy anymore, which subsequently landed me a slap in the face and a comment about whether I was going to be her little girl instead, and a week later, I tried, very determined, to drown myself in the bathtub. When I failed (holding myself under the water, hands pressed into the rim of the tub, trying to stay down, I just couldn’t do it, my body wouldn’t let me, even after nearly two hours of trying, over and over) I packed my things and left, lied about my age to get a job, and I had been growing my hair since. But we had lived the last five years or so of our careers as paint-on women, it seemed, especially me, who could hide behind a feminine dye in my hair and paint my eyes up, already the death rot seductive darkness of a geisha, and sneakily hide that I was just a skinny boy who was blessed with a face cut like smooth marble, my features sharp and exaggeratedly Japanese.

At first, (and by that, I mean for the first thirty seconds after I’d walked out of the salon) I felt proud of myself, a very “take that!” attitude, my face gaunt and sharp with no hair to frame it, but as soon as I got into my car, drowsy-warm from sitting in the sun, I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the window, and started to sob. My hair is long again now, not like it was but close, but I still feel like I left part of myself on the tiled floor of that salon. My first lover had run his fingers through the ends of that hair. My little sister had braided it the last time I saw her six years prior. My mother had forgiven me for telling her I hated her and pet the long strands when I went to watch her die the year I turned nineteen, and Die had pulled them, hard, wrapped the hair around his fist and tugged my head back while he had fucked me, innumerable times, throughout our near decade long relationship.

A lot changed with our music.

There was a short spell, well concealed from any public eyes, where Toshiya nearly lost himself with booze and prescription drugs. I had pulled by best friend, dead and cut to pieces, out of his wrecked car when I was seventeen, and watching Toshiya plummet into a psychotic-laced depression that eventually culminated to me rolling him over during a seizure is the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I cradled his head in my hands, he hardly able to breathe, me staring down into his face, his eyes rolled back, thinking “There is nothing I can do.” Shinya all but locked him into a guest room of his apartment for six weeks and Toshiya emerged sober and a little less substantial, but he came out a man. He told me that, when I went to his home to check on him shortly after, that the whole experience, terrible as it was, had forced him to finally come back to earth. It was easy to think yourself invincible, getting stinking rich and famous so quick, so young, and he said that falling so hard had finally opened his eyes that, rock star are not, his life was real, that he was an adult now, not some kid playing bass too loud in his room, and he wanted to be more responsible, and more creatively involved with the band. He’ll be thirty-three next month, and though he is not truly my brother, or my child, as I’ve sometimes come to see him, I am proud of him as I would be were he really either of those things.

Kyo changed, too. Drastically. Violently. Magnificently. Before, his performance art was meant to push buttons, to arouse disgust and force acceptance of that which makes stomachs turn and lips curl and lungs draw in astonished gasps: fake blood and vomit on stage, thrashing about as though seizing (something he swore off for nearly a year after the episode with Totchi), screaming incoherently, his make-up extreme and often bordering on hideous. As the visual aspect of the band was cut away, Kyo began having separation anxiety, finding new extremities in stage antics and dress, but before what had quickly become slightly silly could develop further, he fell very ill in the middle of a tour, a fever that frightened all of us. We saw him every day in the hospital (his family never came) and whenever we laid our hands on him to soothe his delirious nightmares, his skin burned. Kyo, live, in the moment and not paying attention to the nuances of pitch correctness, had always been a little tone-deaf, his voice going wild on stage, an endearing thing, really, forsaking quality for intensity, which, despite having watched him perform surely thousands of times by now, still strikes fear and excitement and sorrow into me when I see him on stage beside me. When the fever broke, he started to complain about headaches, that his ear hurt, that everything sounded muffled and echoed, and finally, that he could not hear in it at all. A singer with half his hearing gone. It would be like me loosing a finger.

Well, as if the event itself were not bad enough, the critics chose that year to back us into a corner and beat the ever living figurative dog shit out of us. And Kyo. They attacked his live vocal performance, the pitchiness of his voice in the new mini-album, his antics, his lyrics, everything. They tore him apart. Kyo trusted me the most of all of us, and I had been given the great honor of letting me see him cry on a handful of occasions, but then only out of rage. That year, I saw him cry for the first time truly out of sorrow, and he sobbed into my shirt, leaving it damp with his sweat and tears. His spirit dimmed for a while, his eyes often avoiding mine, but after a time, his antics returned, having undergone a bit of a change. There was still blood, savagery, explicit behavior, but the bodily fluids weren’t fake anymore. The first night, he didn’t tell any of us what he was going to do and when he reached his fingers into his mouth and tore at the insides of his cheeks, spitting up great gobbets of blood and smearing them across his face, I almost threw off my guitar and ran to him, but after a few more nights of this, and clawing across his chest (there are great tracts of scars against his ribs now) I understood. All the shit he’d received, all the criticism, even to the starving hungry fans, this was his response. ‘You want a fucking piece of me? Well here it is.’ One night he thrashed across the stage towards me and a warm splatter of his blood hit my face, my lips. It tasted like stale beer and raw passion and faintly of the same strangely temple smell that was Kyo. The others complain and chide him not to hurt himself, but I haven’t protested since.

Kyo’s dancing, too (sometimes more aptly labeled “flailing”) had started off as part of the shock rock package, but now he did it to induce what he said was an emotional release, a trance state where he felt all the things that had put the lyrics of whichever song we were performing together, and releasing all the pain from those events. He had a hand in a lot of the lighting cues of the show, as well, tailoring them to slightly hallucinatory visions that accompanied certain songs. When he reached hesitantly out into the empty air, the fans thought he was eliciting a purposeful sense of grasping for the intangible, but in his mind, in his trance, the words and colors of the song hung in the air and he wanted to touch them. I felt concerned when he first described his trances to me, but after observing the state with the knowledge of its truth, and a good dose of research on music/dance related trance states, my only concerns were ones of safety. He’d hurt himself on stage (unintentionally) enough already. I didn’t want him hallucinating a bridge into the spirit world and nose diving off stage to a broken neck.

Shinya has changed very little, at all, much like his playing style and compositional role in the band. He is always quiet, awkward, but well-spoken and dryly funny when he does choose to speak, and inevitably unsettling. Though the five of us are closer to each other than nearly any other human beings on the planet, Shinya has and still manages to scare the ever loving hell out of each and every one of us. He has said and done things without being told that have repeatedly and strongly implied him to be either a psychic or a Jedi many, many times over the years, and the results are rarely fantastic and usually very unnerving. It’s just his way, and he’s special for it, I suppose.

But I started all this talking about Die, didn’t I? Die… no, Daisuke. He used to be mine and I called him Daisuke, and baby, the English word, because I like how it sounds, and I used to call him baby all the time, but we aren’t together anymore. When I first met Daisuke, the very first time, we were in a club together and we had a mutual friend of some sort, whose name neither of us can remember anymore, and from the moment I laid eyes on him, I hated him. He was cocky, air-headed, obnoxious, and rude. And all at once, I wanted to peel off his skin and climb inside, to know every carnal bit of information about that snot-nosed little shit, and that just made me hate him more, because a very average looking girl was hanging on his arm that night. In the year we saw each other and hardly talked, I found that sake was the best inducer of my fantasies about him, during which I beat my lonely dick like it owed me money and begrudgingly wiped my own cum off my chest after, still hating him. When Kyo met us both and asked us (“told” is a more accurate term) to form a band with him, I must admit that I partially agreed simply to work with Daisuke, to be lead guitar, to make him my subordinate, as I saw it then, and to have the opportunity to watch him everyday, to get a hard-on behind my guitar that became more and more uncomfortable in its increasing frequency as the band progressed, dropped Kisaki, and actually made a name for itself.

It was the night we finished recording Missa that I finally crawled into his skin. We had actually managed to become friends by then (though when I had jacked off so much thinking about him that my cock was raw, I still hated him a little) and we were the last two in the studio, nearly one in the morning, fiddling around, pretending we knew how to mix and EQ our recorded work because just recording it didn’t feel finished and the two engineers helping us had already gone home. Not only did the equipment look like something off a spaceship to us, who had worked with little more than the heads of our amps, as far as audio equipment was concerned, but neither of us really understood the application of pre-amps and high mids and all that mumbo-jumbo that I now use so frequently I could mix one of our shows myself. We managed to do little more than make my guitar sound boxy and sharp before we gave up on it and decided to go home, at which point, Die announced with glumness that he did not have his apartment key with him. ‘No worries’, I said, ‘you can come stay with me tonight.’

I thank all that is holy and divine for American beer because in the morning, though I am still hazy on the details of that night, there were four condom wrappers on the floor of my bedroom, three used rubbers floating like dead fish in my toilet, and one still on Die’s cock, oozing cum out into his coarse pubic hair, he fast asleep. Apparently, I had tried to literally get inside his skin, because there were deep, angry claw marks down his back that he hissed at when the hot water of a shower hit them, but otherwise, did not complain about. For a few months, we were merely lovers, and quickly after that, he moved in with me and we were each other’s drug of choice and devoted partner for almost ten years.

We experienced nearly everything in tandem. The highs and lows of fame, my sister’s awkwardly attended wedding, his family reunion in Mie (I was just a close friend, then, as far as any of them but his oldest brother knew), and of course, our alcoholic binges and the subsequent emotional fire storms they produced. In those times, we fought constantly, physically, whaling each other with fists and feet and anything we could reach, pulling hair and clawing at necks and arms and in the morning, we would drag each other off the floor and into a shower and make love in apology, both understanding the two of us hurt too badly to be blamed for our outbursts. Toshiya had walked into one of our fights, we had started going at each other in the dressing room after a show, and we were both too feral in that moment to realize who was trying to pull us apart until his scared brown eyes jarred us out of our insanity, Toshiya cupping the blood pouring from his mouth where one of us, or both of us, maybe, had hit him, his bottom teeth cutting an angry gash into his lip. I drove him to the hospital for stitches, and he wouldn’t talk to me or Die for nearly a month. At length, Daisuke and I reigned in our anger after that, but by then, we weren’t getting along or spending as much time together, anyway.

What happened to me is I love my art more than anything else on this earth. I love what I do, love what I create, the things that come out of me even if I’m in the deepest sleep, will jerk awake and write and play and record down a demo of a guitar track until the sun comes up. I play until my fingers bleed, literally. I’ve got scars on my wrists where strings have broken and cut my flesh, and I wear them with pride, in some strange sense. Daisuke has marks like that, too, but he rubs special cream into them and now they are faint white lines on his brown skin. I started asking Daisuke why he didn’t collaborate musically with us as much anymore about the same time he asked me why I didn’t put my motherfucking guitar down once in a while.

The rock star lifestyle has always been something the five of us have been wary to indulge in. Granted, we are all insatiable boozehounds, but touring in Europe and the US gave us easy access to drugs of all colors, effects, potency, and range. When we first got to Europe, some of the house crew at the venue we were playing spoke ample Japanese, and asked all of us if we had ever smoked marijuana. We all said no, though it wasn’t true, but we all knew the ragweed we had managed to acquire in high school was not the brain-numbing sticky bud of Holland. They laughed and sat us around in a circle the evening of the night before the show and we passed an elaborate glass bowl, smoking and talking, Shinya even partaking, though he coughed heavily and was quiet and slumped much more quickly than the rest of us, and I had never felt quite so warm in my entire life. We all fell half-asleep slumped to the left, laid in a circle against each other.

Once, in LA, I did a line of cocaine with Toshiya and some big-breasted American women neither of us understood (which I doubt was much of a loss, they did not look to have a whole lot of substance to say with the words they kept spitting out like a bad case of verbal botulism) and while Toshiya seemed to rather enjoy the flood of dopamine, my blood ran cold for that frightening thirty seconds of high, so afraid my caroming heart would just stop, or rip itself past my ribs and out onto that horrible club’s floor, or worse, into Toshiya’s hands, which he seemed to be cupping curiously in front of him as he stumbled about, laughing and talking nonsense with the girls, sharing more lines, but I only took the one, and no more, not ever.

It’s not that I’m particularly against harder drugs, though. In fact, Kyo and I dabble occasionally, unbeknownst to anyone else, in what they call Lotus Eating. Usually always in Thailand, we find some small shack in the jungle on the outskirts of a larger city and purchase some locals to make sure we are safe and still alive in the morning while we lay in the hut, candles lit, and smoke opium. The first time was one of the most amazing memories of my life, and I regret that fact seeing as I hallucinated the whole thing, or nearly. By the time the drug started to kick in, Kyo and I had already finished a decent bottle of sake between the two of us and the sweltering jungle heat was too oppressive. We shucked off all our clothes, laid naked beside each other, elbows touching. He stared at the ceiling the whole time, me with my head turned to the side, watching him, his lips shaking, tears sliding from his eyes into the hair at his temples, wetting it, turning the bleached yellow a dull gold. I still don’t know if he, too, was having visions that caused his tears, or if his eyes were simply watering from staying open for so long. In what was surely several hours, I only saw him blink perhaps three or four times. In the heat, his skin shimmered with sweat and I watched his tattoos dance, his stomach flutter as fear welled in him at either the sensations of the high, or the things the sweet smoke had wrenched from his psyche. In the morning, we were clutched, naked and drenched in sweat, to each other, and Kyo’s eyes (that chasm-like, muddy brown that’s often so hard to read, other than knowing that the emotion there is deep and intense) were on me so sharply I could feel them raking my spine.

I suppose drug use, specifically, doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what happened to me and Daisuke, but what drove us all to the drugs is the same thing that turned Die into something I didn’t know, didn’t love. And I guess me not following that logical fame route made me something he didn’t understand, either. I wouldn’t particularly call Die an alcoholic, or a drug addict, most definitely. He’s done few drugs, if any, save for the shared pot experience, and his alcohol consumption has a lot more to do with the nature of our business than a self-medication technique for the messy childhood he had experienced. But, either way, booze turned laughing, ditzy, bright-natured Die into a snide, spitting, sharp-jointed creature of spite. When he was drinking, he accused me of things I had shared with him privately as fears. That my music was too influenced by others. That I relied too heavily on gimmickry in my more elaborate guitar work, too afraid to really let loose and experiment, too afraid to make bad music. And I was. I was terrified of making bad music. I knew I had surely done it. Not everything in our repertoire were stellar, amazing pieces meant to be analyzed by compositionary scholars (or whatever), but at the same time, I was horrified at the idea of recording an album that was musically null and void. Kyo could just talk, just read his ideas into a shitty microphone at a café and he would draw a crowd in seconds, but a guitar couldn’t really speak for itself easily, or its player. It needed coaxing, a little luck, a little love to really find a way around a sheet of music and around the instrument and make it paint a song with tangible fear or hatred or joyfully released anger.

It was something I had been doing for over fifteen years, and for the life of me, there was no method. Just gut-wrenching hours of the stuff pouring from my very soul, from the unfathomable abyss that is the hole I had ripped into me for a terrible seven months when I was sixteen. My father came back, having abandoned us when I was two, and beat the shit out of all of us; Oka-san, Koro-chan, me, even my dog Niki, who he gave away to a pound because he hated her fur getting all over his clothes. When he found out there was no money, nothing to gain from being back with us, he left again. I was already very self-conscious at the time and the abuse didn’t help my quickly shrinking self-esteem, which was probably a big attribute to why I started a relationship with my twenty year old neighbor, Iishino. He was my first everything; crush, kiss, boyfriend, lover. I gave him my virginity not knowing that meant he would forever be imprinted in me as the antithesis of my childhood and purity. Whenever I think about sex, as a concept, or being a boy starting puberty, or just about leaving home, becoming a man, or feel tainted in this world when I used to be so naïve, so blissfully ignorant, Iishino lurks, though I loved him, like some comic book villain around the edges of my thoughts, my loss and experience with him marring me forever. Just six months into our relationship, he, just as troubled and a little mentally unstable, slit his wrists on his bathroom floor. He left no note. Just a post-it on his guitar that said “For Kaoru” in shaky kanji. I’ve never actually played it, but I’ve kept it with me everywhere I’ve ever moved since. I was told by the people who cleaned up the house and tried to resell it (his parents left immediately following his funeral) that his blood would not come out of the grout. It was then that I tried to drown myself and left home, starting my own ill-charted journey.

All of this is my story to tell, so I share it with you, hoping to give you some example of the things the five of us have experienced, those microcosmic hells I described, but Daisuke’s story is his, and so I wont share it, but know that if what I went through, the short end of the story you have heard, seems harsh, what Daisuke watched and lived through his whole pre-adolescent life makes my experiences seem merely unfortunate. The same could be said for Kyo, but that’s unimportant now, and also not my story to divulge. I’m talking right now about Die and what happens when Die gets drunk, and why what happens when Die gets drunk eventually tore us apart because I wasn’t willing to, or was too weak to admit I couldn’t, help him. Ten years we loved each other so much we nearly tore each other apart, and as we were gearing up to write another album, one we all knew would be tremendous and defining, not for our fans and record sales, but for us, as musicians, as people perfecting an art and a message, and Daisuke and I finally just… crumbled. I honestly don’t remember us even saying the words, just that we looked at each other one night and knew, and he moved his things out over the next week, and I’d been living by myself in that apartment for nearly six months when I came home to find it torn apart.

I called the only person on the planet I trusted with my neurotic emotions anymore and he told me I could come spend the night, just to call the cops and put all my most valuable, intact possessions in my car, and come over to his place until things could be put back in order.

Kyo’s apartment is a series of small rooms. A large bathroom, a small-ish bedroom, a sitting room, a TV room, a kitchen, a dining room, a small office where he wrote and cut tracks, occasionally, the walls of which were lined floor to ceiling with shelves of books. It was always lit darkly, except for the office, which he kept painfully bright, for some reason. Everywhere else was lit only with lamps, draped in dark colors, things lacquered, lots of old wood and furniture pieces he had found in China or Thailand or Taiwan, and only a few little things from his home in Kyoto. His space feels half dungeon, half obscure museum, all part erotic playground. The coffee table of the main sitting room, surrounded by dark leather couches that were terribly comfortable, was a shallow glass terrarium for his two emperor scorpions, with sliding glass sides to feed them or take them out to hold, and he tapped his long fingers against it as we entered the apartment (he had been down the street at a small bar, talking to some of his personal friends), cooing at them sweetly. He set his bag down on a stool at the kitchen counter and waved a hand, inviting me to grab something out of the fridge while he went to change into something more comfortable. We all knew that Kyo preferred to be nude in his home, or hotel room, but he spared me, knowing I was very modest, and wore a cut off pair of loose sweatpants that stopped just above his knees. I was still looking through his fridge, not particularly well-stocked, seeing as none of us had really been in our homes recently, and grabbed two beers, handing him one. He nodded his thanks and beckoned me into the TV room, plopping down on the plush, oval-shaped sofa and flipping on the news at a low volume.

“So was anything taken?” I nodded.

“None of my guitars, thank god, though one of my old Ganesas was snapped at the neck.” My heart clenched a little. “Most of my entertainment center is gone, they tried to rip my computer out of the wall and failed, I don’t even know if it works anymore, my DVDs and such are thrown all over the place, bottles of wine are broken on the kitchen floor. I mean, the place is fucking trashed, Kyo. I felt… felt like somebody had come in and taken apart part of me, ya know? I don’t really keep anything, or buy anything, unless it means something to me, you know that, so everything in that apartment was meaningful in some way, and somebody came in and just… tore it apart.” I rubbed my arm, lips twisted into an expression of anger and loss. Kyo pulled an ashtray over and set it on his knee, pointed in between us, one of his long, knobby-toed feet tucked up into his groin. He tossed a pack of smokes and a lighter to me after lighting one of his own, taking a long drag, the light of the TV casting the smoke plume thick grey, obscuring his face.

“Moushiwake arimasen, Kaoru-san.” He was always painfully polite when it came to matters of emotional trauma or seriousness. “I do know how you are,” he smiled a little, “and I know that you keep everything in your life perfect, in place, together, so that you may feel you have a little tighter grasp on yourself. I can imagine how unsettled and violated you must feel, having your home and belongings ransacked like that.”

I took a deep drag off my cigarette, nodding. I felt stupid doing it, but what else was there to do or say? I spun my favorite ring around my finger, staring at my slender hands in my lap. “Thank you…”

He shrugged, nudging my shoulder affectionately. “I’d be a shitty friend if I didn’t let you stay.” He scratched his blonde head, making a face. “Don’t really know where you’ll sleep, though. I don’t have extra blankets or anything, and the couches aren’t really sleep conducive.”

I laughed. “This coming from the man that can sleep anywhere.” He laughed too, shrugging, and we sat and chain-smoked for a while, watching mindless, horrible comedy shows on late night television. At length, I drew in a breath, leaning slightly into the aura of his presence. “Kyo-kun…” I felt him tense, nervous. He tolerated listening to me in my more emotional states, but I knew it was something he did not deal well with. “I-- you know what happened… with me and Die… right?”

He sat there nodding, not looking at me, for a long moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.” He ground half a cigarette into the ashtray and put it back on the table at the side of the couch. “Get to it. You know I hate when you’re indirect.”

It was my turn to shrug now, one shoulder tucked up into my ear. “Ano… just… it’s strange for me, I guess. It was… habit, anymore. Being with him. Shit, fucking him was habit anymore. I feel… weird. Not having him around. Coming home to an empty house. It feels barren, without him, without his things, without the mess he always left in the kitchen.” I gave a brief grunt of a laugh. “You know, before some asshole shoulder-checked my front door and tore my stuff to shit.”

He rolled his eyes, pressed the inkless back of his hand to my arm. “I don’t know what to tell you, Kaoru-san. And, really, we all feel like shit because, well, we all liked you together. We all… thought it was easy, not having to worry about you two marrying off and having kids and leaving us behind, and when we got a front seat to you both falling apart, the first thing we all powwowed about was what would this do to the band and--”

“Don’t feel bad, it’s a legitimate concern, one I share.”

“And,” he continued on, hating to be interrupted, “I felt bad for taking a little satisfaction out of it.” His eyes would not meet mine. Next to me on the couch, I could feel how tense he had gone, every muscle taut, and visibly so, with most of him bare. I, ever oblivious, sat confused at his side. He started playing with his bracelet and I reached across him to the ashtray, lighting yet another cigarette. We’d either have to locate another pack or go down the street and get another soon.

“Gomen, ne, but… why?”

Kyo smiled, but there was no joy in it, throwing his head back, exasperated. “Please. Everyone else knows. Every single person on this fucking planet that really knows me knows.” And then his eyes, intense and immobilizing, were on me. “Everyone except you.” Recognition clicked together inside me, hard. I’m sure I looked silly, sitting there, lit in the garish glow of the TV, and he confirmed this with a chuckle. “You, my leader-sama,” his lips curled up in a half smile at the name, “and Daisuke… you’re both imploding into tiny little supernovas of finality after ten years together, most of which was good, most of which, I watched the two of you and felt glad that two people I love made each other so happy, and now that two people I love are coping with living without one another, in a world where they’ve both changed and no longer fit together like they once did, me, like a vulture, gleans a small slice of pleasure and hope knowing that…” He stopped, huffed. Kyo always talked like this whenever he was trying to convey something that was hard for him to divulge, in narrative circles. I touched his arm to urge him on. He stared at it like a snake ready to strike. “I’m glad you’re single.” He looked up at me and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such uncertainty in the man I had always admired for his bold devil-may-care composure. “Does that make me a terrible person… Kaoru-san?”

I leaned back a little, felt like his gaze was pushing me back, but I pressed my hand into his arm a little firmer. “No. No, it doesn’t.” I gave him a lopsided smile, turned my hand over to brush the ball of his wrist with my knuckles. “You always were… opportunistic, ne?”

He smiled, his teeth going to gnash at his bottom lip and I felt an electric current start to boil somewhere in my gut. Everything about the past two minutes had been some of the most unexpected events of the past several years. Even the end of me and Die had had more warning flags.

And all at once, his long fingers were in my dark hair, his lips were devouring mine, and I was locking my hands at his back to pull him closer. His body is strong and muscled and his passionate nature about everything had made me expect something like this with him to be rough and frenzied, and though he was surely trying to devour me, he was gentle. His long hands were smooth and felt tender against my face as he cupped my jaw, squeezed briefly at my throat, rubbed my shoulders, stroked down my arms, sending shivers through me, and I moaned into his mouth and he swallowed the sound, taking energy from it, it seemed, pushing me back against the arm of the couch and climbing on top of me, his knees on either side of my hips. I can’t honestly say I’d ever thought about kissing Kyo, though I’ve always thought he was terribly attractive, has become especially so in the past several years, but as I was doing it then, I wondered why I had never wanted to do it before.

He pulled away, pressing his brow to mine, panting for breath, his eyes lidded. “You taste so good,” he mused, smiling, kissing the high ridges of my cheeks. I felt where his lips had brushed my face grow hot and I knew I was blushing, which made me blush harder. I was about to tell him that he tasted good, too, but he had put his mouth back over mine before I could. The sweatpants didn’t leave much to the imagination, his dick hard and tented in them and pressed to my t-shirted stomach, but he didn’t seem in a hurry, just kissed me, something that I found I could do with him for hours, for days. His teeth brought sharp, brief pain, first to my bottom lip, plumping it with blood, then my neck, then tugged gently at my ear, and then he bit hard at my shoulder and I cried out, but it was a pleasured sound, and the sensations made me bury my fingers in his hair, trying to push him away, but pulling him closer, cradling him to me. He worked his hands under my shirt, played the smooth pads of his fingers over my chest and I let him pull it off, putting my hands over my chest for a moment. I had always been very self-conscious about my body, and he pulled my arms away, almost angrily, holding my wrists. “No. Let me look at you. You’re beautiful.”

My eyes went wide. Even Die had rarely told me this, in such words, but when his lips wrapped around a nipple and tugged, I had no qualms about being shirtless anymore. This went on for a while before I simply could not take it anymore and reached for his hard-on. At first he pushed my hands away, but I persisted, pushed him off of me and back against the other arm of the couch, rubbing him through the cloth, and I realized my hands were shaking. I had seen him naked several times, but I had never really seen his cock, and what I felt in my hands now was thick and long and I was nervous. His hands twitched, wanting to put them in my hair, or on my shoulders, or something, but he settled on lacing them together over his chest as I pulled the waistband of his pants down under his balls.

What I saw before me deserved worship. I had always heard the urban legend about short men being hung like a horse, and though I am not certain of the ultimate truth of this, Kyo is certainly a point towards affirming it. His dick was an angry purple monster, a hair past eight inches, surely, and girthy, the vein protruding dangerously. I breathed out something silly like “Oh Christ” over it and he gnawed his lip, moaning. I licked my lips hungrily and leaned down, squeezing the base, my thumb rolling his balls, and swirled my tongue around the head, dipping it into the slit for half a second. I leaned up quickly and he made a short sound of protest before realizing I was just putting my hair up and then went back to work. I kept one hand wrapped around his base, feeling the coarse texture of his pubic hair, my free hand pressed into his chest to hold me up, fingers rubbing absently at his skin, catching a nipple briefly with my nails, applying hard suction to his head as I worked my way slowly down the long shaft. I mournfully discovered he was too thick to fit it all down my throat, but I did my best with what I could fit. The sounds coming from him were enough to make me want to cum, trapped inside my tight jeans, and I was surprised and uncertain of what had happened when he threw me backwards, back against the other side of the couch again, and straddled my chest, pressing his cock past my lips, grabbing my hair, holding himself back just enough that he didn’t hurt me, and started fucking my throat. I grabbed his hips, digging my fingers into his firm ass, finding it impossible to smile, though I wanted to, at the tiger tattooed on his stomach lunging at me over and over again.

He finished with a pained yell and stopped moving, though I sucked and licked at him until he began to come down from the star-visioned stratosphere of orgasm, swallowing his load. It tasted nearly identical to his blood, minus the coppery glow, with that same temple-smell taste. He stayed straddling my chest for a while, shaking from the exertion, trying to catch his breath noisily. I kissed his hips, his stomach, stroking his thighs and squeezing his round ass in my hands, kneading it. Finally, he slinked down, naked and sweaty, and laid against me, nuzzling his face into my neck, one hand twisting strands of my hair around his fingers.

I was still hard, but could live, and he was too exhausted to do much else that drag me into the bedroom, where I shucked off my jeans and curled up next to him under his soft covers, both of us falling asleep laid against one another, just as the sun was coming up between the Tokyo skyline past the blinds.

When I woke up, Kyo was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, the door open into the bedroom, and was humming what I eventually arranged to be the opening of Ryoujoku no Ame. I rolled over, pulling my hair down and scrubbing my hands through it, smiling at him. He finished waking up, coming back into the bedroom, still naked, and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over and kissing my brow. “Ohayou.”

I rubbed his arm, purring. I had not had affection like this in almost two years. “Mmm… ohayou gouzaimasu.” I yawned, stretching, and he scratched behind my ear like a cat. “What time is it?”

Kyo looked around the room for a clock. “Uuuh… shit. About three.”

“In the afternoon?!”

“Yeah.” We both laughed. “’M hungry.” He slid the back of his hand across my cheek briefly before going off into the kitchen, heard rummaging through the cabinets. I finally got out of his comfortable bed and pulled my clothes back on, brushed my teeth with a spare tooth brush that was still in its packaging in his drawer, and went to find my shirt from the TV room. About that time, a knock sounded at the door and Kyo flung on a pair of track pants, going to answer it.

I had sat down and started to smoke and heard Kyo call my name not long into the soft conversation I had heard from the door. I got up and walked into the living room, confused as to who would be at Kyo’s apartment, looking for me.

Daisuke was the last person I expected to see. Here. Just after what I had done with Kyo. It meant I was officially done with Die, being with someone else. Yes, I had had nothing else but my left palm for six months (ten, really, the goodbye fuck we had didn’t count for much) and Kyo’s cum, I thought a little disgustingly, was still sitting in my stomach. I stopped at the back of the couch, seeing it in his eyes that he just knew. Ten years counted for something. Changed or not, he still knew me like no one else.

“Where in the fuck were you?” At least he still loved me enough to be concerned. “I went by to get some of my stuff, the place is a wreck! Mrs. Shitori down the hall said the place got robbed, I thought you’d been home, I thought maybe somebody had killed you, fucking cut you open, and you wouldn’t answer your phone and--” He still loved me enough to be concerned, and right then, my body was processing protein and sodiums from our mutual friend and vocalist’s spunk. God, you do this to me on purpose, I just know it. “And I finally find you, and you’re fucking him?!”

Kyo’s jaw tightened and I could see he was getting pissed off be included in Die’s ranting. “You’re in my house, Ando, watch your fucking mouth.” Really, Daisuke was mostly still in the hall, but he didn’t take much heed to Kyo’s warning, anyway.

“Oh, yeah, I should respect what’s yours. After you fucking-- I thought you were my friend, too, man! I mean, fuck me running, we’re not together anymore, but did you really have to go diving on him so soon? I don’t want to see something that was mine belonging to someone else.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, Daisuke,” I grit out, standing at Kyo’s shoulder, now. Really, I was there to make sure Die didn’t deck him, but the other surely took it as a stance of “we’re together now, so there”, though I don’t really know if we were together then, just that I’d sucked his dick last night and I was beginning to love the feel of his skin, the way he held me, the smell of his hair. “I’m fine. I got home late last night and found it trashed, I didn’t even want to deal with it. I came to stay with Kyo.”

Apparently, it wasn’t so simple for Die. He was stubborn. Me moving on meant ending it wasn’t his choice, and he had serious issues with feeling like things happened outside of his control. I don’t really think he wanted me back, but knowing I had made the decision that we would most likely never be together again by officially moving on made him antsy. He made it an issue. Blew up. Supernovaed.

“FUCK. YOU. That was my place, too. I had my shit there. You could have at least called me and let me know. Not this. You know what? Fuck both of you!” I would have explained to him that his shit was still there because he wouldn’t fucking come and get it, that I knew he had been out last night getting shit-faced with some American guys that thought he was cute, but Die was raging by then, and I knew that when he was angry, all reason left him, his head void of anything rational, or words that could really hurt me, thank god. When he wasn’t angry, he knew how to string words together that made deep, jagged cuts into my heart. Kyo pointed to the door as Daisuke’s long, brown fingers snarled into his hair, his voice getting angrier and less stable, words coming out that I hoped in a more reasonable state he would regret. “Get out, Die. Go home.” Die turned quickly on his heel and spewed something ugly and accusatory in Kyo’s face, but my ears were ringing too loudly with shaking rage and I didn’t catch it. Kyo, ever calm, just pointed more emphatically out into the hallway. “Get the fuck out, Die.”

I impress myself sometimes, because I hadn’t rationally registered that Die had grabbed Kyo around the neck until I already had the once-redhead by the back of the shirt and was physically throwing his scrawny ass out the door. He tripped, trying to get his feet under him, and smacked face-first into the wall. He turned, sliding down it, and looked up at me, knocked a little stupid, but a little clearer-headed. “…fuck…” he breathed out, wiping the tiny bead of blood from his mouth where his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek. He got up and brushed himself off, embarrassed, looking ready to run, looking at his hands and not believing where they’d just been, red handprints already glowing past Kyo’s skin. Remorseful or not, I also knew that seeing this in Die, this man I hadn’t known, hadn’t ever been in a relationship with, made me no longer miss what I’d lost.

Die had the balls enough to look Kyo in the eye for a brief second and stuttered a soft “sorry” before shoving his hands in his pockets and hurrying off down the hall. I closed the door, locked all three bolts, and set Kyo down at the kitchen counter, prodding the marks on his neck. “Shit… you alright?”

“The neck? Yeah… seeing one of my closest friends snap and try to kill me? No, I think I’m in a little shock.” I almost lied and told him I’d never seen Die like that, so I shut up, getting a paper towel damp with cold water and rubbing at Kyo’s neck, who looked pissed and also too lost for words to care. “You think he’ll drop it?”

I shrugged. “He knows he just made an ass of himself, and Daisuke is nothing if not arrogant. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’ll drop it.” Kyo grunted something like ‘good’ and put his arms around my shoulders, pulling me to him.

“I guess I wasn’t thinking like that…”

“Hmm? Like what?”

“That… me being with you. Maybe being with you? Whatever, you know what I mean… that it might be… kinda low. Seeing as you two were together for so long. I could see why it might hurt a man.” He didn’t let me go, though, just held onto me. I rubbed his back, rocking him back and forth. “I don’t… I’m not asking… you don’t have to…” He sighed, angry with himself for being at a loss of words. “We can just… forget what happened last night. Ya know… you being in a vulnerable state and all.”

If he hadn’t just been throttled, I would have hit him for that, pulling away, instead. “Shut. Up. I don’t just forget things like that, Kyo-kun. Believe it or not, I don’t just do things like that for the hell of it. I let that happen. I wasn’t expecting it, for sure, but by the time it just… happened… it was exactly what I needed.” I stared down at him and he pulled a serious little face. “You’re what I needed.” I leaned down and kissed him and tasted something like aching relief against his tongue, which he pressed into my mouth and I didn’t mind, wrapped my own tongue around his and let him press himself to me, hard.

We kissed, having migrated back to the bed, for nearly an hour, just kissing, touching, hands in hair, on shoulders, fingers lacing, getting to know the feel of each other’s body, how we fit, how our mouths meshed together. I loved how he sucked on my bottom lip, the way he would just moan and it held volumes of words. I had never felt so… desired. Not for a long time, anyway. I couldn’t imagine how long Kyo had wanted this, but he was patient, savored me.

When we finally got up to go get something to eat (we were both starving), there was a message on my cell. It was Daisuke. He didn’t say these words, specifically, but I knew how to paraphrase for prideful Die, who always had difficulty apologizing. He said he was sorry for all the shit that had happened the last couple years, for acting like he had, and he was just nervous we couldn’t be civil around each other. He wanted things to be good between us, normal, and he promised to try and do the best he could on his end, that he loved me, no matter what, and to be safe. I smiled, deleting the message (he would be embarrassed to know him conceding were documented still) and went with Kyo to dinner. It was our first date, I guess, and we still laugh when we talk about it, that I sucked his dick like it was prom night before we’d even had our first date, and after I’d finally cleaned my apartment and a week later took him to dinner, we actually had sex. I let him inside me. The first man in ten years, other than Die. He felt good there, he fit (metaphorically speaking; physically, he fit just barely), and I knew I had really changed. I’d redefined myself, redefined my edges. I was a similar picture, but the puzzle pieces of me were different, perhaps more complex, and Die was a simple man, liked his life easy. I had loved him for it, still did sometimes, but my pieces did not fit for him, anymore. As I was sinking into a dream state, laying in Kyo‘s arms, my body sore and stretched and blessed to be so, I remember thinking “I was a young man, a different man, when Die and I loved each other. I’m a new man now, an old man, maybe, but Kyo is what that new man needs.”


	2. In Praise of the New Republic

The last gig of a tour was always an ambiguous occasion. There was the sense of accomplishment, the joy of having a break to look forward to, the little disappointment that certain expectations may not have been met, and the nervousness that, even after years of doing this, always came before a performance.

Kyo had his feet kicked up on the counter in the dressing room, messing around on his phone, his tongue playing around the very inside edge of his bottom lip, like he did when he was nervous. I sat on the counter by his feet, rubbing a leg. “You good?”

He nodded. “Yeah, ‘m good.”

I nodded, continuing to rub at his leg affectionately, always first to be done getting ready, looking around the room at the rest of our band. Toshiya was swiveling back and forth on his stool, rubbing idly at the shaved side of his head, phone cradled to his ear, speaking in quiet tones to his boyfriend, Evan, an American of Chinese descent that the rest of us adored for the simple fact that he was just so good to Toshiya. Shinya was beside him, flipping through a magazine, waiting for his hair to dry. Die sat at the far corner of their counter, his back to me, but I could see his face in the mirror, studying himself intensely. There was an odd expression on his face, like he had just realized what it was like to stare into his own eyes and was mesmerized or maybe a little afraid of the man he saw there. When he caught my gaze in the mirror, he almost glared and looked away, preoccupying himself by pretending to put his make-up bag back together.

We had been doing this short tour for about four months now, Kyo and I had been together for six, and so far, Die had been pretty civil. I didn’t have to worry about Kyo, he was not prone to start anything unless confronted first, but it had been tense, for certain. I watched Die carefully, both out of security for my safety and others, but also because I was concerned. Daisuke had been my lover for ten years, just because we fell apart did not mean I didn’t still love him. I most assuredly did, as much as I also hated him, sometimes, and he was taking me being with Kyo pretty harsh. We had only been apart for a year, after all, although the last two years or so of our relationship had been uncomfortable; it’s expected, really, that when you’re with someone so long, that you change, and sometimes, what you change into is no longer compatible with the person you had shared your life with. We had been very young and very different when we first fell in love, and who we were now, who we had started becoming about four years ago, in fact, was not the Die and Kaoru, forever devoted, that we had been at the start.

Our stage manager interrupted my thoughts, which had quickly begun sinking into darkness, letting us know we had about five minutes to places. Kyo stretched, getting up and tugging on a velvet suit jacket, fixing his hair in the mirror. The anxiety crackled in the room, Toshiya saying goodbye to Evan and doing his pre-show ritual of knuckle popping, neck cracking, and what I was sure was lamas breathing exercises. Shinya had no real ritual, the only one of us that didn’t, though I suspected his was a mental one. Die was standing, arms out and crooked at the elbow, twisting back and forth, his eyes vacant, obviously deep in thought. He alternated, depending on the level of stress he was feeling, between this and forward bends. The twists meant he was so nervous he wanted to throw up. I was up on the balls of my feet, bouncing lightly, shaking out my hands. I’d already been attacked by a few of our crew, who had massaged my forearms and wrists, digging their thumbs into my palms to loosen them up. I felt a little like the diva rock star to have it done, but it helped, and felt so good. Kyo went out into the hall for his ritual, always finding some quiet, preferably dark corner, sitting cross legged with his hands either laced or in prayer position, getting himself together. He gave little pieces of his soul every show, you had to be prepared for such things.

At places, we huddled together, hands stacked, Die’s rested on top of mine and I could feel that his palms were clammy. Toshiya called it tonight, “Dir en!” and we all answered, “Grey!” It was silly, for sure, but it made us feel good, pumped us up. We waited in the wings, watching the stage for the lighting cues of house out, bump to black, and the pulsing blue (so we didn’t kill ourselves getting onstage) while GDS blared over the speakers. I readjusted my in-ears, which needed no readjusting, another nervous show tick, and followed Die and Toshiya on, Shinya heading upstage, Kyo the last to enter, and in the impossible mental moment of “I can’t do this, what if something goes wrong, I just can’t do this” the show started, I began to play, and, even with my in-ears cranked and the two wedge monitors in front of me threatening to blow out with the intensely loud first few bars of Machiavellism, I could still hear the crowd.

Several songs in, I had to squint to see my set list, despite it being day-glow fucking orange. Ah, dead tree, of course. That meant I got to just groove for a while. We’d played this song many times, it was second nature to my hands to form the chords. I usually took the time to really watch the crowd, surveying their faces, their expressions, their flickering, pale hands, waving back and forth in a sea of crackling excitement. Kyo swayed dangerously from on top of his cage and began to claw at himself. I watched him out of the corner of my eye briefly, then went back to watching the crowd, surprised when I noticed that he was coming across stage to me and the faces at the front of the crowd were watching imploringly, wondering, as I was, what in the hell he was doing as he dipped his fingers into his mouth, pulling them out painted with blood, an awkward fuchsia in the blue lights, and smeared it across my face.

I couldn’t very well stop playing, and I was too shocked to do much else than drop my jaw, letting him put his fingers into my mouth. The taste of his blood set me off and I thought myself rather sneaky to catch my expression from one of surprise and made it look like this was all planned, rolling my tongue against the coppery-coated digits with an expression I hoped looked hungry and savage, not lustful, which is what I really was. He sneered a laugh, satisfied at my reaction, and there was a surge of excited screams from the crowd. Toshiya was staring at us in shock (he was very squeamish about blood, something that made he and Kyo bicker on occasion) and I just shrugged, continuing to play, finishing the song.

We rolled right into the next song of the set, and I couldn’t help but milk the crowd’s reaction to Kyo spitting up hocks of blood, going over and propping a leg up on the top of one of the wedges flanking Kyo’s cage. I could feel the smears of his blood were heavy and dark, they were sticky against my face, mixing with my sweat. Kyo looked down at me, smiling at his handiwork, and spit. My natural reaction was to turn away, he had spit at me! and I felt the wad of it hit my throat, sliding down my neck and chest, under my shirt. More excited screams. I could imagine Toshiya gagging behind us, I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m sure it added a little more shock value to the show, and it was the last of this tour, so I just went along with it, unsanitary and potentially unsafe as it was. I could imagine how much more uncomfortable this was to watch. It was one thing for Kyo to self-mutilate and bleed on stage, it was another for him to be bleeding on me, swapping bodily fluids, as it were, but of course, I had swallowed plenty others of his.

I played by Kyo through the rest of the song, head banging until I thought I was going to concuss myself. I finally came back up, leaning back into Kyo’s leg, like I’d done plenty of shows before, finishing out the song, and faltered. Kyo’s hand had come under my chin, grabbed my throat, pressing me back against him, and hard. This was no stage trick. He was choking me. And the worst part was, I was getting hard. My hands left my guitar, the song was over, I’d fucked up the last few chords, but he let me go before I could reach to try and pry his hands off. He shoved me by the back of the head back towards my nook of amps, and I could feel the eyes of the rest of our band on us, silently hissing ‘What are you doing?’ but hell if I knew the answer to that.

For most of the rest of the show, Kyo left me alone, though his eyes would meet mine now and again, keeping my erection alive, uncomfortably squeezed into my jeans. The last song of the main set was Lie Buried With a Vengeance, after which we would retreat off stage to catch our breath, maybe do some shots, then come back and finish with Dozing Green. I was feelin’ it, as Die called it, eyes closed as I played, feeling my lips pucker out in what Shinya made fun of me for and labeled the “ha-do-ko-ru” face. Since I couldn’t gesture with my hands, seeing as they were pre-occupied doing something else, I had picked up the habit of gesturing to the crowd with my face, odd little things that I did out of habit anymore, and apparently looked like an absolute fucking moron doing, but I didn’t care. Little tongue flickers, my pursed-out lips, sneers, etc… it was me getting into the song, and I was entitled to look like a crazy dick. After all, inside I was still just a kid who loved to play guitar.

I was really getting into my groove when I was startled out of it, feeling a strong hand wrap into my hair and tug, hard enough to snap my neck back and shove me to my knees. Kyo, of course. I almost stopped playing, again, nearly falling forward and having to put my hands in front of me, but he still had me by the hair and kept me upright, pulling just hard enough that I couldn’t really move. Apparently I was just a prop for now, because I was beginning to wonder if he was going to just fuck me right on stage (I had seen how hard he was in those painted-on black pants) but he just held onto my hair, yanking me around as he screamed into the microphone, shoving me to the floor when the song was done and the lighting bumped to black out.

I jumped to my feet, slinging off my guitar, holding it up and flashing horns to the crowd, the wall of their screams tangible, I swear. I left the stage, handing my guitar off and Kyo was waiting in the darkness of the wings, grabbing me. I took the upper hand and shoved him back, kissing him silly, tasting his blood in both our mouths. “Baby!” I breathed, giggling, the adrenaline always making me feel high, “come on now, don’t do anything stupid, people will suspect!” He just growled and kissed me harder and I pressed him into the wall, grinding against him for half a second before we tore apart from each other to wipe off the sweat and blood and down a bottle of water, each. When we went back on to finish out the show, I could feel four very familiar, intense pairs of eyes on me: one pair lustful, hungry, wanting, the other three confused and slightly angry.

I guess at that point, I didn’t care. You did things on stage you would never do in real life. There was something about the rush of it all that made you bolder, and sometimes plain dumb, which is why I went when Kyo made beckoning motions at me, let him pull me up by the front of my shirt onto his cage with him, both of us standing tightly together on it, me stood facing stage left, my face turned out towards the crowd, eyes closed, just getting into the music, not caring and not pulling away when Kyo’s hands grabbed my hair for the second time that night, this time gentler, arching my neck back ever so slightly and, forsaking a section of chorus to do so, kissed and bit at my throat. I clenched my jaw shut so that it wouldn’t fall open and let out the moan that bubbled up out of me, his facial hair rubbing at my collar bone roughly. He pulled away and still had me by the hair, practically screaming into my mouth with the microphone in between us, and I joined him, the whole arena going crazy. I stepped down at the last few bits of the song and Kyo ripped up the cage, gaff-taped to the stage, and threw it back into Shinya’s riser, like he often did, handing his mic off to a techie and going back to the front of the stage, precariously at its edge, just screaming at the crowd, angry and challenging, and they loved it, screamed back, devoted.

We got nothing but knuck’ and high fives all the way back to the dressing rooms, Kyo collapsing in front of the mirror, panting, a towel over his head, blood still streaked down his chest, mingling with sweat against his bare, earthy skin. Toshiya slapped me a few times on the back, shucking clothes on his way to his section of counter, always quick to change into something more comfortable after a show, giving me an ambiguous smile. “You two are risky mother fuckers!”

Shinya, who had already sat down and was removing his light make-up, carefully wiping the kohl from beneath his eyes, huffed. “More like stupid, I was thinking.” I turned and had my mouth open, ready to protest, but Shinya’s nearly black eyes met mine with a dangerous tone that told me to shut the hell up. I did. We all sat around relaxing for a little while, Die quickly reassembling his bag like he always did before wandering off, presumably to the bathroom or something, and we all started getting our personal effects together. We’d be going home tonight, four of us to Tokyo, and Shinya with a separate driver down to Osaka. I don’t know how he did it, living in the city where he grew up, having the childhood he did, whether he loved his mother or not. I loved my sister, but I wouldn’t return to Hyougo if you paid me.

A techie came in to collect our in-ear monitors, Die’s already out and laying on the counter where his things were packed and stacked neatly, and I decided it was about time I go look for him before he got too tore up. We had agreed the night before driving out here to not get shit-faced after the show, we’d all meet up in Tokyo next week and party to celebrate the tour then, we just wanted to get the hell out of here and go home tonight, but Daisuke had taken a new lover after me, and always had his fingers around the neck of its bottle.

I found him with the expected bottle of Jack, kicked back on top of a road-box, down a far hallway of the inner workings of the arena. When he saw me coming, he just sneered, taking another long swallow. I stopped for a second, closed my eyes, took a long breath. I would not fight with him. “Die. Come on. We’re all almost ready to go.”

He looked into the amber depths of the bottle thoughtfully, lovingly. “Already got my stuff together Kaoru-sama.” Somehow, he made the polite suffix sound anything but polite. I sighed, stepping closer to him.

“I mean come on, put the bottle up, we’re all ready to drive back to Tokyo. We all want to go home, we’ll party next week.” I reached out to take the bottle from him and he growled, jumping from the top of what I saw now was the case for the PA we toured with, and smashed the bottle down onto the concrete floor, the flare of alcohol stinging my sinuses, little pieces of glass chittering off down the hallway. I took a step back, fear flashing through me. When we fought, it was always when I was too drunk or angry to care that he was pretty good at hurting me, but I was sober right now, and only a little pissed, my body already aching phantom pains, knowing the kinds of things he could inflict. “Die… come on. Let’s not do this. Let’s just--”

“Just what, Kaoru?! Go back to Tokyo, go home, ready to curl up in a warm bed with his warm body? Well guess what? I don’t have anything to keep me warm, I’ve got a cold, unpacked apartment, and you rubbing him in my face doesn’t make me staying civil around you very easy. Not when you used to share my bed.” He almost moaned and I felt sorry for him for perhaps the first time since we had ended our relationship. “Don’t you know it’s hard for me? You were part of me for so long… my things still smell like you, Kaoru. When I’m horny and alone, I think about the feel of your skin, because it was all I knew for ten years. I haven’t got anybody, Kao. I don’t know how to love anybody else but you.” I stood, shocked, hurting. I knew what he meant. It was hard, remembering what it was like to love him, when we still really loved each other, when that love wasn’t something that wore us out and ravaged us like an aggressive cancer.

“Die, you know it can’t--”

“Can’t be like that again. Yeah, I do know. I know we’re not the same, I’m not the same, and I know he loves you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, too. Miss you, Kao… God, I feel so lonely anymore…” I wanted to reach out to him when tears started to form, rolling down his cheeks, but he seemed to realize the tears, too, and suddenly snapped, angry at himself for being weak, and angry at me for being the reason for that weakness. “Just… fuck off, Kaoru.” He started down the hall to the door that led out into the parking lot, but I knew that was practically an open bar for the roadies, and if he made it there, who knew how drunk and unruly he would be. Enough that we wouldn’t get him back to Tokyo tonight, that was for sure.

I jogged after him and just as he was about to hit the door, he spun on his heel, eyes blazing. “I said fuck off!” He shoved me, hard, and I stumbled back several steps before falling hard on my ass with an ‘oomph’.

I tried to scramble back when he came at me, all long, skinny limbs and crazy, hateful eyes but he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and yanked me up, punched me right in the mouth. That was all I needed to snap. Die and I had fought each other tooth and nail many times over the years and though he was stronger than me, bigger than me, I knew how to hold my own against him, even if it was solely because I had to deter him from seriously hurting me. I yanked away from him, planted my feet, and swung back, hitting him just in front of his ear and he stumbled, but was back up in a second, both of us throwing blows and grabbing shirts and hair.

We tussled and beat each other for several minutes until we were caught in a stale mate. Die had his hands around my throat and I had mine around his. We were both squeezing as hard as we could and I was fighting psychic wars in hopes he passed out first, because if he didn’t, he just might be drunk and rage-blinded enough to kill me. My vision was starting to go black around the edges when Die’s grip loosened and his eyes rolled in his head. He dropped to his knees and leaned onto his hand for a moment, out of my grasp, and dizzy as I was, gasping for breath, I could still stand. I kicked the shit out of him, toppled him backwards onto the ground. He’d managed to grab me by the leg of my jeans and tugged as hard as he could, which wasn’t very hard, with his brain still trying to re-oxygenate, and out of spite at him still trying to fight me, to hurt me, I let the heavy heel of my boot stay where it had landed as I’d caught myself, right in the palm of his hand, and ground it there angrily. Fuck him being a guitarist, I was tired of having my ass kicked every six months because we both had pent up rage issues and he didn’t know how to avoid liquor when he was stewing. At first he just hissed at what should have been fairly tremendous pain, and then he realized what I already knew, that those hands were needed and when I felt the delicate little bones grind together and start to pop, I hated myself for sneering with satisfaction down at him while he screamed, pleading wordlessly with me to please stop.

When his screams had become regularly patterned with pleas of my name and thick sobs, I finally let up. He rolled, curling himself around his hand, already purple, turning black, and sobbed loudly, desperately, tearing his throat to shreds, and people were running, it seemed, from all sides. Shinya and Kyo, Toshiya staying cautiously at their backs, remembering what had happened the last time he’d interrupted one of Die and I’s brawls, a few roadies, all with the same appalled look, right at me. ‘You monster’ their eyes said, and I knew they were right. I had fucked myself, too, for the sake of settling the score, trying to deter Die from ever starting any of this bullshit again, and there lay my fellow guitarist with what was surely a badly broken hand, my doing. Shinya was quick to act and shooed off all the roadies, telling them to fuck off and not say a goddamned thing, ever, about what they had just seen, going up and down the hall of the arena, closing doors, quarantining us off.

He came back and crossed his arms over his chest, his bronze hair pulled back from his severe face. Toshiya was standing over Die, mouth open, looking like he was in some sort of trance, obviously unable to grasp what he was seeing, how it had happened, the ramifications of Die’s injuries, and whether it was safe to lean down and try to quiet Die, who was still screaming at the top of his lungs. Kyo was looking at me, and my heart slammed to see disappointment in his eyes. I knew I looked a mess, too. At least I had that going for me, proof that I hadn’t just decided to attack Daisuke. I could feel blood pouring down my face from a gash in my brow from Die’s ring where he’d punched me and I’d ducked a little too slow, my lip was split, my throat surely showing signs of us strangling each other, my knuckles torn and bloody. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his and I felt nothing but guilt throb through my quickly aching body as he just stared back, not coming to me, not comforting me, not making sure I was OK.

Toshiya had finally leaned down and was stroking Die’s hair, quieting his screams to soft snivels, and Shinya turned on me, his dark, dark eyes shooting psychic daggers at me, I just knew it. I actually flinched and his nostrils flared for a half second before he finally opened his mouth, his voice as level as he could make it, and I had never seen him have to exert himself so much to stay in control. I could see him want to beat the shit out of me, and Die, too, maybe. “What. In the fuck. Just happened?” I moved my mouth a lot, but nothing came out, and I gulped down air, managing only to shrug. Shinya glared at me, and I felt physically ill under its effect. “That’s it. That’s it. This is like watching my parents all over again, and I wont do it. I’ll take Die to the hospital, but after that, until you two actually stop trying to tear each other apart, you can find yourselves a new fucking drummer.”

He turned on his heel quickly and went past me to Toshiya and Die, helping pick Die up, who was shaking like a leaf, his usually tan, dark skin a sort of grey color and clammy. Toshiya (who had been trying to stay strong for Die but was now in tears hearing Shinya’s statement) had Die around the waist and was helping him over to sit down in a chair pulled out into the hall.

I rubbed at my temple, leaning against a road-box, braced on my right hand, Kyo going to get me a wet rag to wipe the blood off my face. Shinya had his back turned, on the phone with what I assumed was a local hospital, letting them know Die would be coming in soon and what injuries to expect. I stood there, feeling like an idiot, feeling like the enemy. I had hurt Die badly, I knew, but did none of them understand it was the heat of the moment? That not fifteen seconds before I started to grind his hand under the heel of my boot, the chances of me passing out and Die strangling me to death were looking pretty fifty-fifty? I suppose I couldn’t blame them, though. I thought I was a pretty big piece of shit right now, too.

And suddenly, it was like in a movie, when everything slows down and sounds are distant and all I knew for what seemed like an eternity was blazing, glaring, indefinite pain. Around me, I could hear people yelling, one like a madman, two others in pleading tones, and the sharp metallic sound of what I later found out was the thirty pound stage weight Die had smashed down onto my hand, falling onto the concrete floor. I heard myself scream, too, fell backwards, cradling my hand to my chest. Kyo had me by the shoulders, looking at the damage breathing out “oh God” and I could hear the tussle behind me of Shinya and Toshiya trying to subdue Die, who had raised the weight again to swing at my head. “Fuck you, Kaoru! Fuck you!” I heard him screaming like a mantra, punctuated with laughter and “Now we’re even!” and I couldn’t believe that he still sounded shit-faced drunk and I was jealous, because the pain I was feeling needed to be numbed, now.

I chanced looking down at my hand, expecting maybe some intense swelling, some bruising, maybe broken skin, and what I saw was blood pouring, obviously broken fingers, and the shiny white of bone and tendon peeking through the skin of one knuckle. I dry-heaved, looked away, beginning to cry, not from the pain, but the fact that it had been Die and me that did this to each other. What in the fuck was a band supposed to do when both guitarists had broken hands?

We were driven separately to the same hospital, where Die was taken back first, and I sat cradling my hand wrapped in a bloody t-shirt in my lap, Kyo at my side, squeezing my knee and rubbing my hair when the pain flared up and all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and will it away. Shinya came back from the ER glaring at me. “None of his fingers are actually broken, but the bones in his left hand are all snapped, one in three places, one in two places. They might actually have to do surgery to correct it, Kaoru. They might have to replace one of the bones with steel.” Kyo had started humming loudly to himself to block out the accusatory tone in the things Shinya was saying to me. I could tell it was infuriating him. I looked up at Shinya, sweaty and sickly pale, my eyes desperate and black, I was sure, but I couldn’t tell him I was sorry. Die and I deserved this, the both of us. It wasn’t his place to make me feel like an ass, I just felt shitty that what we had put each other through would inevitably effect the rest of them.

Shinya sat down next to me, burying his face in his hands. “Why in the fuck do you two do things like this to each other? I expect it from Die, he’s murder when he’s drunk, but not you. That scared me, Kaoru, knowing you did that to him. He said you just stood over him and ground your boot into his hand, even after you heard it start to break, even after he’d started screaming for you to stop.”

I chewed my lip until I tasted blood, not able to look Shinya in the eye. “I lost myself… I was scared, we’d been strangling each other before that, I thought he was going to kill me, but he faltered first and… I just went after him. I lost myself, Shin…”

A nurse came out before Shinya could tell me what bullshit that was and took me back to have my hand X-rayed. I sat with Kyo in a room for nearly forty minutes before a doctor came to show me the images and I dry-heaved again to see them slapped up against the light board. My pinky? Dislocated at the second joint. Ring finger? Fractured, looking like a peeled banana between the second and third joints, the knuckle looking strange. That was the one that was peeking through the skin, he said I was lucky it was not the knuckle that had broken and pierced up through the skin, just the skin flayed open around it. Middle finger? Shattered. Die had brought the corner of that thirty pound weight down against it first, tremendous force funneled into a single point for even half a second making the bones look like fragile pieces of candy cigarettes left at the bottom of the box.

My fingers were set as best as they could manage, braces for the middle two fingers anchored in a cast that came three-quarters of the way up my forearm. Kyo had held my face to his chest while they set the bones and though he wouldn’t admit it, I could feel tears seep into my hair as he curled around me, trying to soak up or block as much of my pain as he could. They released me and said there wasn’t much else they could do until I started to heal and Kyo walked me out of there into what was now very early morning sunlight out in the parking lot. It had been hours. I was ready to go home.

*

I slept for almost sixteen hours straight. When I woke, Kyo was already out of bed, his side cold, which felt good on my skin, which felt like it was burning. I didn’t exactly live at his apartment yet, but I stayed here often, and it was where I wanted to go after leaving the hospital and driving all the way back to Tokyo. My apartment had been Daisuke’s, too, and I couldn’t deal with that right now. I was sore all over from Die and I beating each other last night and when I remembered about my hand, a pang of guilt shot through me, a longing for a rewind button to life. If I could go back, knowing how it had all turned out, I would have just laid there and let him beat the shit out of me.

I lifted my hand, light that I realized was sunrise coming in through the blinds (I wondered why Kyo was not beside me, realizing what an early hour it was), the bulky cast looking like plastic Elephantitis, my pinky, which had only needed to be relocated, angry red at the joint and swollen. It was by far the best of the three. My knuckles were bloody from punching Die, the one still split open, though no bone was visible, and my ring and middle fingers were like purple sausages in the braces, swollen and dark. A helpless moan rolled briefly in the back of my throat and I put my hand back down, gently. It hurt to breathe on it, it seemed.

I sat up, throwing both legs over the side of the bed and standing, slowly. Everything hurt. I padded around the apartment in my boxers and a big t-shirt, finding Kyo in his office, typing furiously at his computer, sitting in just a pair of particularly skimpy boxer-briefs. He stopped when he noticed me, sagging in the doorway, and smiled. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

I shrugged. “Sore. Sweaty. …Guilty…” I pressed my lips together, then stopped, having forgotten they were split. Kyo stood, coming to me and putting his arms around my neck, giving me a concerned look I couldn’t quite pin. His fingers were curled around my hair and his sharp hip bones were jutting into mine. One of his thumbs gently brushed over my cheek and I felt that it was badly bruised, the light pressure he had applied making it ache. I didn’t want to look in the mirror, but Kyo insisted I take a shower, that it would make me feel better. Smelling myself, ripe with my own juices from the show and the fight and sitting in an ill-air-conditioned hospital for hours, I had to agree.

He tugged me into the bathroom (I caught one glimpse at my face, swollen and bruised and cut up, and avoided the mirror from that point on), stripping me down and turning on the water to heat up while he went into the kitchen to retrieve a garbage bag and electrical tape, covering my cast. I groaned, feeling even sillier than the damned thing made me feel in the first place and he just rolled his eyes, kissing me before shucking off his underwear and tugged me under the hot water. I groaned happily, sagging against him, his arms around my waist. We just stood there under the showerhead for a while, my bum hand just hung limply at my side, the good arm wrapped around his shoulders, my cheek resting on top of his head, his face tucked into my shoulder. At length, he pulled away and turned me around, lathering shampoo into my hair (I hadn’t realized that I couldn’t really do it on my own now, not until my fingers had knit themselves back together), his nails raking my scalp, pulling contented grunts out of me that made him chuckle, kissing my shoulder as he pushed me forward the rinse it out. Next, he washed me, his touches sure and sensual, careful of how much all of me ached, kissing and nuzzling me as he went, and before too long, I had another ache. It was just how we were, and I couldn’t complain.

Before I knew it, I was holding myself up with my good hand against the shower wall and he had me by the hips, fucking me raw and all I could do was pant and moan like an idiot, my garbage-bag-covered-casted arm tucked to my chest, not able to do anything with it. He was always rough when we had sex, thorough, if you will, but I could tell he was holding back just enough to take my current physical state into consideration, and I was grateful. I came first and screamed, something that had a fifty-fifty chance of being either his name or the sound of me having finally been driven officially crazy by his cock. He continued to pound into me for another few minutes and I didn’t mind, rolling my hips for him, and he pressed his face into my back when he peaked, pushing as deep as he could into me, staying there for a few moments until he had gathered his wits about him again, pulling out and rinsing us both down before turning off the water and wrapping me in a towel, kissing me silly.

I fed off his mouth for a while, always adoring the taste of him, and we eventually ended up on the couch of the TV room, his arm around me while I was all but curled up into his side, both of us eating out of the same container of left-over Chinese take-out, watching the morning news. My hair was dry and I had gotten dressed by the time someone knocked on our door, and this time I was not surprised to see Daisuke, hidden behind Toshiya and Shinya, standing there in the hall. Kyo had had to go jerk on a pair of pants, had even thrown on a t-shirt, and was coming up behind me as Shinya was telling me coldly that we needed to talk and did not wait to be invited in before he went and stood by one of the couches in the living room, never able to sit down when he was angry. Toshiya followed with a little apologetic smile and Daisuke followed him, not looking up, staring at the floor. His arm, too, was in a cast, though his fingers were not swollen, but I could tell from the strange coloration of what little of his hand was visible that I had, indeed, hurt him very badly. Toshiya sat down with Die on the couch Shinya was brooding by. Shinya sucked at the inside of his cheek and gestured sharply at the other couch. “Please,” he grit out, “sit down.”

I was afraid to argue and so I did as I was told, Kyo sitting beside me, the glass table/terrarium in between us and the rest of our band. Shinya was standing with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and I breathed a silent sigh of relief when I noticed he was glaring at Die, too. I had become afraid that I was the sole enemy, here. “I meant what I said,” Shinya started. “If this shit doesn’t stop, or more, until it stops, you can consider me out of the band.”

When we formed we had a few rules, which had been amended a little over the years. Here are the tenants of Dir en grey:  
1) If it isn’t fun anymore, don’t do it.  
2) When in doubt, ask Kaoru. (I argue the validity of this one all the time.)  
3) Live as privately as possible.  
4) You say something revealing or stupid in an interview, we will not back you up. CYOA.  
5) Do NOT EVER under any conditions fuck with Shinya.

Apparently, Die and I had broken rule #5, and Shinya was trying to follow rule #1. I looked across the table at Daisuke, his unbroken hand, sporting bloody knuckles like mine, cradling the hurt one, his lips shaking. I could see he was very close to tears and my heart gave a little lurch for him. I knew something had been wrong with him, lately. Perhaps last night was his, what did they call it, moment of clarity. Or maybe right now, Shinya threatening that something had to give or he was gone (we all knew that without any one of us, there was no Dir en grey), maybe this was his moment of clarity. Whichever it was, he was breaking down. I could see it. Shinya turned back to me. “Kaoru… I know you didn’t start last night, but you let your anger take over you. I can’t tell you how much that terrifies me, makes me want to leave for good, but I’m willing to give you both a chance. You both need some kind of life line, maybe therapy, you need to work on having a healthy friendship, or at the very least, a functioning work relationship.” I sat there nodding, unable to look into Shinya’s black, depthless eyes.

He turned to Die next and Toshiya put an arm around Daisuke’s shoulders, his black hair hanging loose into his face, obscuring most of it, but I knew him too well, and even the little sliver of his features I could see betrayed to me that he was ready to start sobbing. Shinya sighed. “Die… Daisuke…” Shinya snatched a hand back through his blonde hair, shifting his weight onto one hip. “You need help. Serious fucking help.” Die practically spit up the first quiet sob and Shinya closed his eyes. I could see this hurting him, having to make such an ultimatum, but I also knew how necessary this was, for all of us. Shinya always knew best. “Will you get sober?”

Toshiya was rubbing Die’s back, the motion more to comfort himself rather than the guitarist. Die took in a shaky breath as if to answer, found that he couldn’t, nodded. Shinya pursed his lips. “That means we’re all in on this, then. None of us are drinking together anymore, indefinitely. I find out any one of you fuckers is drinking around Die, that‘s it. Deal breaker. I‘m gone.”

Die snapped up, his hair falling from around his face, and his lips were curled back from those perfect teeth, but it was not in a smile. “So you think that’s my problem, Shinya? Drinking?”

Shinya blinked at him, unphased, or at least on the outside. I had known Shinya long enough to suspect with 99% certainty that this was a man that kept his outer self perfectly in control, and hurt only to himself. “No, I don’t. But the drinking is what makes you a violent, sharp-tongued, insolent little fuck that makes me want to pound your head in.” Die stood and I saw Shinya get ready to slap some sense into him, but Die wasn’t going for Shinya. He reached into his back pocket and pulled his wallet out, yanking a picture from it with some difficulty, only able to really use one hand, and thrust it at me, clambering around the table, hitting it with his leg, making the two scorpions skitter away to the other side, falling on his knees in front of me, holding the picture in his shaking fingers, tears making hot tracts down his face.

“Look at us. Look at us, Kao!” He was hysterical, a little crazy, even, but I looked at the picture and wanted to cry with him. Toshiya had taken it, I remember the day, we were rehearsing for our first big tour and Die had hugged me around the waist, kissed my hair, told me he loved me and couldn’t believe we were doing all this, the tour, the band, the album, everything, we were doing it together. We were dressed down in the photo, hair, long and dyed glaringly bright colors, tied back into ponytails, jeans and t-shirts, nothing special, but it had always been Die’s favorite picture because that was the quintessential us, when “us” was still something we could talk about happily. “This is how I remember you. This is what I miss at night when I think of how we’ve both changed and I’m so alone that I’m afraid to go to sleep and wake up still alone. This is what I mourn the loss of, Kaoru. I loved you. I still love you! But I don’t know what to do with myself, I don’t adapt well, you know that! And I just…” He sobbed, sagging, his brow pressed to my knee. He just sat there for a moment, crying, everyone else in the room tactfully trying to act like they were not observing, but from the uncomfortable posture of both Kyo and Shinya and the tears obviously welling up in Toshiya’s eyes, they were all very aware of what was happening. Die pulled himself up onto the couch beside me, putting his hands in my hair, looking at me like he hadn’t in so, so long. “I need help, Kaoru…”

He fell into me, his fingers still clutched to the picture, and I put my hands in his sleek, long hair, rubbed his back, held him to me. Feeling him against me like this made my heart ache so badly I felt nauseous. “Oh Daisuke… Daisuke… I love you, too. You know that. You know that.” And it was true. I did love him, would always love him, had no other choice than to love him. I could only hope Kyo, whose face I could not see, turned towards Die like I was, my face in his hair, understood. Die and I had been going about this all wrong; we couldn’t just move on from our relationship in a manner of “it’s done and over, let us not speak of it”. Something beautiful we had shared had died, we needed to mourn it. I held Die for a while longer, let him cry himself out a little, and he finally sat up, wiping his face with the back of his good hand. I tried to smile for him, but my lips shook and I simply couldn’t. As if understanding, he nodded, standing up, Toshiya jumping to his feet, trying to pretend like he hadn’t been in tears, as well. Kyo was already leading Shinya back to the door and when he met my eyes, even briefly, I knew that he very clearly comprehended the subtle exchange of the previous moment’s events. He was not jealous, he did not judge, he just understood and accepted, and reminded me all the more that I adored him, and was lucky to be with him now.

We all milled to the door and Shinya simply left, still angry, making his point clear; love us, though he did, he would only come back when Die and I had shown some sort of consistent improvement and Die had sobered up. The four of us left exchanged hugs, and when Die grabbed me, my memories all clicked together, his arms around my waist, mine tucked under his arms and across his back, head rested into his shoulder. This felt good. I had hidden here many times. It was strange, considering that we had a fairly well known habit, from the very beginning, really, of pounding the snot out of each other, that Die had always had a very keen ability at making me feel safe.

Toshiya let us know he would stay in Tokyo instead of going to New York to see Evan like he had planned, knowing Die needed a neutral party for support while he was recovering. I thanked him and watched Die hug Kyo for a long, long moment and I could tell they were whispering to each other, but I didn’t know what they were saying, only that when they pulled away and Toshiya walked Die down the hall, they both looked like they weren’t afraid of each other anymore.

When they had reached the elevator, Kyo closed the door and leaned back against it, breathing a heavy sigh. “This is going to be tough, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh shortly at the expression on his face. “Oh, baby,” I sighed, putting a hand in his hair and giving him a short kiss, “yes. It is.”

“But we’re gonna be OK… right?” He pushed off from the door, into my arms, clasping his hands at the back of my neck and I rested mine, the cast becoming a little less awkward the longer I had to deal with it, low on his hips. “I mean… all of us. And you and me. It will all work out, yeah?” His muddy brown eyes were honestly concerned and I could see his pulse quicken at the thought of losing me, of Die and I making up only to realize there was still a relationship to be had, but that was only possible in some cruel fantasy world.

I shook my head, kissing him again. “I can’t make any promises, baby. Daisuke has a lot of pride to get past, having to admit all the things he’s done, it might be very, very difficult for a while.” His nose crinkled with displeasure and I brought my good hand up to cup his face. “But you and me?” I sucked at his bottom lip, flicking my tongue across it, making him give a short, contented moan. “Yeah… we’ll be fine. We‘re gonna be just peachy.”


	3. Scrutinizing the Industrialized State

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Die's story, part 1.

Kaoru’s soft lips, God, how I had always loved the silken, hot texture of his mouth, descended over me again and my eyes rolled back in my head.  I put a hand in his hair, feeling the strands between my fingers and there was a ‘pop’ as he lifted off of my dick, his river-rot colored eyes smoldering up at me.

“Oh, Kaoru,” I breathed out, ignoring how cold the room was.  “Mm… Kao…”

His pale, smooth body slinked up my gangly, tan one, sinking himself down over me and I let out a moan that sounded a little more like a sob.  His pale arms stretched up above his head, hands in his own hair, and he began to roll his hips, riding me.  I took those rolling hips, the ones that had been so dangerously sharp when we’d first met, filled out a little bit now, helping him move.  His motions got faster and faster, more forceful, and together we let out an impassioned cry and--

And I came all over myself, lying on a futon on the floor in the drafty little, plain white apartment I had rented when I moved out of the place me and my incubus ex-lover used to share, cold, and alone.

I reached over the side of the mat, grabbed a dirty t-shirt, wiped jiz off my chest, a drop of it in my armpit, a sticky line threatening to roll down my neck into my hair.  Kaoru had always joked at how I came everywhere, shielding his eyes when he jacked me off, or the rare occasions he was on top and facing me.  But I had not been Kaoru’s lover in what felt now like a very long time.

My name is Ando Daisuke, and no, I’m not crazy.  I don’t beat off at night fantasizing about my ex-boyfriend because I want him back, or because I can’t move on, and I certainly do know that what I just experienced was not real, thank you very much.  No, I’m not crazy, but I sure fucking feel like it a lot these days, and how crazy I feel generally correlates accordingly with how lonely I feel.

Let me catch you up to speed on how fucked up the last few years of my life have been.

Almost fifteen years ago, now, Niikura Kaoru and I met and hated each other’s guts.  A year later, we formed a band together.  Nearly two years after that, we got drunk and fucked, and for seven, maybe eight years succeeding this glorious event, we were lovers.  No, not just lovers, partners.  I wasn’t really keen on calling him my boyfriend, ever, but if I call him my lover, some people might misunderstand the nature of our relationship.  Be sure of it, I loved (correction: love) Niikura Kaoru possibly more than anything else on this planet.  So for seven or eight years, we were wonderful together, deeply, madly in love, but our relationship lasted just over ten years.  The last two and a half were spent starting to un-know each other, turning into different people, drifting apart, and finally, like the swelter-hot last breath of somebody shot in the middle of the street, we ended.  I moved out, moved here, and have lived alone ever since.

Wait wait, oh no, it gets better!  (Read:  Worse, for the sarcasm impaired.)

So Kaoru and I have not been together for almost two years now, and ten or so months after I left, he started dating Kyo.  (If this name-drop defies all logic to you, it did to me, too.)  And about three months ago, Kaoru and I had it out with each other and well…  First, understand that Kaoru and I have a history like most couples that love each other so much it hurts, literally.  We tend to beat the Christ kissing fuck out of each other.  And three months ago, on the last show of our tour, Kyo and Kaoru decided to get frisky, on stage.  Well, not frisky, per say.  I’m sure, taking the other crazy shit Kyo has done during lives into account, it just looked like more performance art (whatever the fuck that really means), but it was enough to piss me off, seeing the man that I used to love and hold and fuck getting turned on, and bad, by someone else.  Right there in my face.

So I grabbed my trusty whiskey bottle and I sulked off after the show, just minding my own business, getting absolutely lit like it was nobody’s else’s.  Kaoru, of course, insisted it was his business and by then, oh, I was very sloppy.  I threw the rest of my bottle on the ground, shattered it against the floor, it was very dramatic, I promise, you would have been impressed at how poetic the gesture was, and for a good thirty seconds, I broke down and told him everything, how I missed him, how I was so alone, and how I knew that we wouldn’t be together anymore.  I tried to make this clear, but as I said, I was already very drunk, that I missed what we had, but I knew full well there was no redeeming that state between us, and by the time my words got all jumbled up and I was saying things I didn’t mean, that he would misunderstand, I realized I was crying, and I shut myself back off, telling him to go fuck himself or some such nonsense and storming off to find the roadie’s party, which always had good, cheap booze, and lots of it.

Kaoru wouldn’t drop it.  He was always stubborn.  I turned, yelled, shoved him.  He fell flat on his ass, and for some reason, I wasn’t done.  I guess I’m what you call a mean drunk.  I grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt, hauled him up (it frightens me in lucid states, but when I’m like that, I get very excited, I mean, my-dick-is-rock-hard excited, that he is so frail, truly, and that I could so easily break him), and decked him.  Well, from there we beat the snot out of each other for a while and then we had our hands around each other’s throats and I was the first to go down, the world shooting into black for a moment and hovering in it while I recollected myself, bent over on my knees on the floor, and before I could really get my shit back together, the bottom of Kaoru’s boot had hit me like a sledge hammer right in the ribs and I went reeling backwards.  I grabbed onto the leg of his jeans, thinking “You dirty mother fucker!” but he wasn’t piss-ass drunk like me and was able to catch himself, staggering, but staying up, landing oh-so-conveniently with the heavy heel of his boot in my hand.

When he first applied pressure, I thought “Shit, fuck you, that doesn’t hurt” even though it did, but when he looked down at me with eyes that had no Kaoru left in them I remembered “I’m a guitarist” and screamed.  I could feel the bones in my hand grind together and I screamed louder, staring up at Kaoru, into a face that I had watched while I made love to him for years, and that face was a mask of hatred, and the bones began to pop.  I remember screaming “Kaoru, please no!” and I remember he didn’t stop, kept grinding my hand into the concrete floor, like he was trying to stomp me out, like he was killing some pesky bug.

He finally let up and I laid on the floor, sobbing, in blinding pain, and then Toshiya was helping me up, sitting me down in a chair behind Kaoru, leaned with his right hand, his perfect right hand, the bastard, against a road-box and there was a stage weight, a thirty-pounder, righting the wobbly leg of the chair and when Toshiya’s back was turned, that evil thing inside of me that liquor has the key to, loves to turn it in the lock, picked the weight up, broken hand and all, and made sure Kaoru and I were even.

Toshiya tells me, in his quiet, scared voice that makes me think of my younger brothers describing what they had heard from our parents’ room, that I had raised the weight again before Shinya and Toshiya had knocked it from my hands, to smash into Kaoru’s head, to bring it down on his hand again, I don’t know, because I don’t remember, and Toshiya says, and his voice shakes when he gets to this part, that I laughed and laughed.

Shinya got fed up.  He has always been a cold, controlled, robotic bitch, and I hate him for it, because I wish I could choose to not feel like he does.  Or whatever he does.  I don’t really know.  What I mean is, I love Shinya fiercely and he said that if I didn’t get sober and me and Kaoru didn’t stop making a quarterly appointment to knock each other around, he was leaving the band, and our lives, for good.

So.  For the past three months, both guitarists of Dir en grey have not been able to actually play their instruments.  Kaoru could, technically, now, it had been his right hand, and the last three fingers of it, but he chose to leave his guitar put away until I could play, too, and I take sadistic satisfaction from this, because I know how much he lives for playing guitar and he is doing this for me.  For those same three months, I’ve been trying to stay sober, and doing a pretty sore job of it.  As of now, I have not had a drink in ten days.  But ten days ago, I got so fucked up I blacked out and only god and maybe some lucky fucker that lurks in the Ni-chome district knows what happened to me then.

I turn my head, look at the empty bottle on the unpacked box that is serving as my night-stand right now.  I leave it there so that every time I think about getting a drink, I see it and remember that when I drank it, I embarrassed the fuck out of myself and hope that it deters me from indulging my urges.  I’ve drank seven times since I put it there, but I’m hoping that the laws of attrition apply.

I walked into the liquor store two and a quarter months ago and bought that bottle at four in the morning.  I needed a drink.  I needed a drink so bad.  My hands were shaking, my head hurt, my eyes felt like someone was tugging on the back of them, and I just wanted a drink.  I only took enough yen for a cheap bottle, leaving every other form of currency at my house so that I could not be tempted to buy anything stronger, or larger, or anything more than one bottle but when I got there, sitting next to the smaller flask of the decent stuff I liked was a cheap, big bottle that looked familiar, and I bought it.  I opened it walking down the street, still in the paper bag, just cracked the top seal and jerked my palm across the cap, making it spin up and off like my oldest brother had taught me to do with soda bottles when we were kids.

The first swallow was a fourth of the bottle, I swear, and when the effects hit me, I was only a block from Kyo’s apartment.  I had already gone to Kaoru’s and he was not there.  Kaoru came to the door and opened it just a crack, the chain still on, glaring at me.  He was only wearing a pair of boxers and I could see from the rouge-y plumpness of his lips and how erect and dark his nipples were that he and Kyo had been in the middle of fucking when I’d gotten there.  I wondered briefly if they had just been fooling around about to fuck, or if while I had stood outside knocking, Kyo was pounding Kaoru’s what-I-remember-to-be tight ass, had had to pull out and let him go to the door, and the thought made me a little sick.  He glared at me through the crack, upset.  “Daisuke, it’s late, and you’re drunk.  Go home, Daisuke, dry up.  If you want to talk, we’ll talk when you aren’t shit-faced and inclined to throttle me.”  He closed the door and I stayed yelling and banging on it until the neighbors called the cops and I was escorted home.

For nearly two weeks after that, I didn’t drink, but then I thoughtlessly had a beer at a house party of an old friend that lived across the city, and that beer led to eight others and two body shots off some college girl, and the times after that had been bottles of liquor, here in my apartment, my cold, lonely apartment, by myself, and those six times that I’ve fallen off my short-lived wagon, I cried until the bottle was empty and I was drunk and asleep.  I never thought I was an alcoholic, never thought I needed booze, thought I just liked it.  I mean, I’m a fucking rock star!  Sure, I got a little out of hand on it, but I wasn’t that bad.

But when I laid awake, sober and aching, wanting a drink, or when I went out to lunch and had to leave before my food arrived because they served alcohol and I couldn’t stop myself if I didn’t just go, I knew that was exactly what I was.  A drunk.  A lush.  A fucking loser.

It’s dark in my room, I keep thick curtains up (third shift workers and anyone in the business of live performance understands that we all sleep during the day and have found sneaky ways to keep the sunlight out of our homes), but it’s probably around noon or so.  I rolled over, reached for my cell with my injured hand, now in a brace and with a little mobility back, and dial up Kaoru.  We had not talked since I had fallen off the wagon and, like a crazy, beat on Kyo’s door, but, he’d told me that if I wanted to talk, to do it when I wasn’t blasted, and right now, I’m dry as a bone.  Today will be a week of me participating in a sobriety program at a local community center.  I couldn’t do AA, all that twelve step bullshit and you’re helpless against the disease, and not to mention the God stuff.  My mother (and, no, I’m not kidding) was a Catholic, I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing about the glory of God.  After all, the glory of God when I was growing up, us five boys and our crazy parents, were the days when Dad didn’t beat you, or not too hard.  It was Mom being able to afford enough food to actually feed the seven of us, not just stave off the hunger for a while.  It was my brothers not making fun of me or actually backing me up when other kids did, it was before Takeda died.

But that’s not important right now… what is is that for ten days, I haven’t had a single drink.  I’ve thought about it, long and hard, and laid here on the floor and cried because I wanted a drink, and cried because I wanted a drink.  I haven’t talked to Kaoru much at all, I’ve been too embarrassed and also, a blind rage still boils up in me sometimes when I think about him, but I’m starting to figure out that Kaoru just makes me mad at myself a lot.  The group I meet with, have every night for the past seven days, is really just… a discussion group.  We’re mostly all drunks there, though one girl, a very young, skinny thing, is addicted to pain medication.  Addicted… that’s what I am… knowing that is very scary, for several reasons.  First off, saying that you’re addicted to something gives that thing power over you, and I’ve always had a very staunch opinion that you are ultimately responsible for yourself.  I refuse to think the booze has power over me.  Chemically, yes, I do need it at this point, but that’s my fault for letting it be my crutch because I couldn’t deal with myself all these years.  But ultimately, I make the decision, the very, very difficult decision, to get clean.  Second, addiction was such a stigma anymore.  It was a word for crack-cocaine fiends, heroin junkies, meth heads.  I had a problem using that word in reference to myself.

Either way, the group helps.  They make me feel like I’m not the only one of the planet that has fucked up this bad, and something about knowing all of them need a drink, or a fix, and (something that surprised me when I heard it) someone to hold them at night, too, made it a little easier to bear my burden.  Kaoru finally picked up and it took me a minute to remember what I was doing on the phone in the first place.  “Ah… hey, Kaoru.”

There was a pause on his end, almost like he was thinking “oh God, what does he want” but he finally answered, and his voice was soft, caring.  “Daisuke… how are you?”

I shrug, realizing how I was was just recovering from having beat my dick to the thought of him, the way he had been years ago, the way he had been when I had been his lover.  “I’m OK, I guess.  It’s been ten days, and I feel like I have a lot stronger resolve now than I did before.”

“That’s good,” he said, sounding a bit mistrustful, but still encouraging.  We were both silent for a second and then he started again.  “How’s your hand?  Have you tried playing yet?”

I twitched, knowing he was asking partially for himself.  I knew he ached to play guitar again, but he was sticking it out.  “I can’t really close my hand enough yet… it doesn’t hurt as bad, anymore, but all the muscles are tight.  No, I can’t play yet.”

“Oh…”  I tried to ignore the disappointment in his voice and plunged on to what I had really called him for.

“I’m moving in with Toshiya for a while.”  Our bassist had called me yesterday (though he had called me every day for the past three months, making sure I was alright) and demanded that I come stay with him, that I needed an environment where I was around people, where I had support, and he confided that he missed me and worried about me and would feel better if I stayed with him for a while.  His guest room had a very, very comfortable bed, so I agreed.  “He’s trying so hard to help, God love ‘im…”

Kaoru chuckled.  “It’s Toshiya, what could you really expect?”

I laughed too, and it felt good, having the first civil, comfortable moment with him that we had had, really maybe in a year.  That one little laugh.  But I kept going, I had more things to discuss.  “Also, I’m seeing a therapist.  Well, I saw a therapist, the one time… he said that… it would be best for you to see him, too.  With me.  So that maybe we can figure out why it is we, ya know…”

“Beat the shit out of each other?  Endangered the solidity of our careers for the sake of inflicting pain on one another?”

“Yeah, exactly.”  I sighed.  “He has an opening this evening around six, said it would be easiest for him, since he’s seen just me the once, if he got to talk to you alone, before he sees us together, get an unedited view of what happened from both sides, you know…”  We all hated therapists, but Shinya had made it a requirement that Kaoru and I seek professional help for the issues that brewed between us.

Kaoru was heard rummaging around, perhaps actually checking a schedule to make sure he could make a six o’clock appointment, sucking at his teeth.  “Mm… yeah, I think I could do that.”  I gave a triumphant smile that he could not see and dictated directions while he jot them down, agreeing on meeting there together in two days time, and I said my goodbyes.  I crawled up off the bed as soon as I’d hung up, foraging through the piles of crap to locate the hamper with my clean clothes, pulled some on.  Everything in this apartment was a wreck except for the little corner with the things I would be taking to Toshiya’s.  I dug through the fridge and found a bottle of water and a wrapped half of a sandwich from yesterday, sitting at the kitchen island and eating while I waited for Toshiya to come pick me up.

He was right on time, early, in fact, about ten minutes before one, and Evan was with him.  I let them both in and Toshiya hugged me.  “I hope you don’t mind Ev being here.  I kinda needed my own support, ya know?”  Ev, or Evan, a young thing who had grown up an all-American badass with the pretty face of his Chinese heritage, had been stage manager for a smaller band on tour with us in the US.  He had long black hair, a platinum streak of which fell over one of his eyes that on closer inspection were a deep shade of violet, and sharp bones under the pale, smooth skin of his face, and Toshiya was absolutely fucking smitten with him the second they met.  They had been dating for two years now, meeting back and forth between New York and Tokyo, and though Evan was shy and awkward, the rest of us tolerated him because none of the scumbags Toshiya had dated before had ever been so incredibly wonderful to him.

I shrugged.  “It’s all good.”  I jerked my chin up in a nod to Evan and he gave a half smile, helping Toshiya carry my things down to the car (I would have helped, but my bum hand was useless with carrying anything these days) and I locked up my apartment that I couldn’t call my home and Toshiya drove us across town to the backside of one of the city’s large parks, where all my things got carried up into his guest room.  Toshiya’s place was calm, peaceful, mostly blues and browns and greys and everything was soft and comfortable.  Toshiya tugged me down onto the couch once my things were put into the room, snuggling up into my side.

“I’ve been really worried about you, ya know that?”  I nodded, hugging him, Evan tactfully excusing himself into the far wing of the apartment, letting us have our moment.  Toshiya frowned, wrapped his long arms around my back, rubbing the ends of my long, black hair.  “Shinya called yesterday and asked how you were doing, and I had to tell him the truth… he just… hung up."

I winced, but laid my cheek on top of Toshiya’s head, anyway.  He always meant well.  “I know… it’s not your fault, he told me to sober up and I haven’t been doing such a great job at it.”

Toshiya sniffed, sitting up to look at me.  “But you’re trying!  You haven’t been doing great, but you’re trying.  That’s why I wanted you here, I hoped maybe if you were somewhere you could be watched out for and always had somebody to talk to, it might make it easier for you.”  He gave me a hopeful look and I couldn’t help but smile.  Hara Toshimasa had the biggest heart in Japan, I was sure of it, a fact that sometimes opened him up to a lot of pain that wasn’t even his to start with.

We just sat there, holding each other (Toshiya was a big believer in the healing powers of touch), talking idly about the kinds of things people were saying in the trash rags about us, why Dir en grey had suddenly fallen off the map, taking a hiatus, what was up with Kaoru and me wearing casts and now braces on our hands, and even still, some people raised questions about the antics between Kaoru and Kyo during our last live of the tour.  I had seen that goddamn photo of Kyo with his lips wrapped around Kaoru’s neck more times than I cared to, thank you very much, especially because I still remembered exactly how Kaoru’s skin tastes.  Toshiya assured me it would all blow over, I’d be healed up and Kaoru and I would be playing again before I knew it and Shinya would come back and everything would be like none of this crazy madness had ever happened.

I humored him and just hummed a ‘yeah’, but I knew that even if everything did work out, I got sober, Shinya came back to us, we started playing like a band and acting like friends again, it wouldn’t been like any of this hadn’t happened.  Couldn’t.  It needed to be like all this shit had gone down, because we needed to understand, if it came to it, that we were strong enough for each other to get past it.  In my heart, I knew we certainly all loved each other enough to do such, but I wondered if I was strong enough to stay sober.  I was still uncertain of this.

Evan came back in and we ordered an early dinner of Thai take-out, sitting around the coffee table, talking about bands right now, tours that were going on, new albums coming out.  Evan was a font of knowledge in this respect;  it was his job to know about the industry, to be able to immediately pluck out some insightful blurb of facts on some trend at a moment’s notice if a producer were to rack his brain for a selling point.  Toshiya had a hand on Evan somewhere for nearly the entire meal, and I felt a little pride at the fact that, for the first time, seeing two people together like this did not make me a mean, spitting demon of envy.  Sure, it would be nice to have someone.  I wanted someone.  But I was finally becoming a real person again, and I was happy that they had each other.

Around five, I left and took the metro to group, sitting around and listening to their stories and knowing with a little more conviction that I had to stop drinking, that I had to continue being sober.  When it was my turn to talk, I wanted a drink, bad.  What I said was something like this:

“My name’s Daisuke… I’m sure some of you recognize me…  I’m here because I drink.  And when I drink I get mean.  And my friends have all told me that I have to get sober or… well, I just know I have to get sober…  I grew up in Mie with four brothers and my parents worked themselves to death, literally, too, they both died of heart attacks within a year of each other not long after I left high school, trying to keep the house, to keep the seven of us fed.

I was second oldest, and my older brother, Takeda was like… the cool kid at our school.  He was just… like, charming, ya know?  All the girls loved him, all the guys wanted to be his friend, but I wasn’t very well liked… I had these big, goofy glasses and I guess you could say I grew into this huge mouth, because I used to get called Bunny Teeth and all kinds of other shit, get made fun of for how I looked, that I was poor, that I was always so skinny, that I was shy…  Anyway, Takeda stuck up for me.  My younger brothers pretended we weren’t even related, they liked to pick on me, too, took advantage of the fact that I wouldn’t fight back with them, but Takeda always stuck up for me and I loved my brother so much.

I guess I would know now, but I didn’t see it then, that Takeda was… really depressed.  Jaded, I guess you could say?  It didn’t matter how popular and well liked he was, or that he could have any girl he wanted, or guy for that matter, if he had been inclined, that’s how much people fawned over him, but he was just… down.  A lot.  And, like most of the kids at our high school, he went to parties and got drunk a lot, and he seemed to like that.

Takeda always drove me to school and I had a Saturday Kendo practice, but he wasn’t in his room to wake up when I was ready to go, so I went looking for him.  I got downstairs and looked in the garage and there he was, sitting in his car, asleep.  He’d done it before, pull up so trashed that he just slept in his car, not wanting to stumble up the stairs to our room.  I opened the door and shook him, told him to “Get up, asshole!” but…”

And this is where, in front of all these people I didn’t actually know, I started to cry.

“He wasn’t asleep…  He was cold and stiff…  Alcohol poisoning, that’s what they told us.”  I laughed bitterly at myself, throwing up my hands.  “And I’m a drunk!  You’d think I would have learned from my brother’s mistakes…”  I wiped my eyes and collected myself.  “Anyway, I haven’t had a drink in ten days now, and I want to keep this up.  I don’t want to give in and buy another bottle of liquor and get smashed and probably make a fool of myself in front of all the people I love…  I’m surprised they still tolerate me, all the shitty things I’ve done in the past, and I can’t lose them.”

I hadn’t told anyone about Takeda since I had divulged, in a sobbing mess, my family history to Kaoru, years and years ago.  It hurt to remember my brother, to have found him with his dry, ashen lips and cold, clammy skin, that face I used to love with its expressive ways frozen forever in the slack wash of drunken stupor.  But right now, I felt good, felt like, like something had shifted and made a little more room in the uncomfortably cramped space of my heart.  I walked home from group feeling better than I had in months.

When I got back to Toshiya’s apartment, I was glad I was still being quiet and contemplative, because Toshiya and Evan were on the couch, kissing slow and deep, smearing their mouths together, which was completely disconnected from what was happening with their lower halves, Evan fucking Toshiya hard and fast, Totchi’s long, slender legs splayed out, Evan’s back flexing and rippling, his ribs swimming under the skin as he moved.  Apparently Evan had hit a spot with particular precision because Toshiya threw his head back, all but screamed, bucking in Evan’s lap and I felt like such a putz watching, for getting horny, but it had been a long time since I’d been with anyone and they were both very, very beautiful.  I couldn’t walk to the guest room, I would have alerted them of presence, and I didn’t want to embarrass them, or tip them off that I had actually stood and observed, so I backed out of the apartment, locked the door back, and decided that, risky though it was, I needed to find something warm to comfort me that wouldn’t scar my liver.

Being at the bars early was easier.  Nobody was really drinking heavy, just sipping beers, talking with friends, having just gotten off work, most of them, and it was a lot more comfortable.  Besides, I’d left all my money on the table in the foyer to make sure I couldn’t buy a drink, and just hoped that whoever I took home, or more, went home with, would not insist on buying one for me.

I was sitting there, drinking soda, wishing there was a splash of rum in it, for about an hour before some hot young thing sat down beside me and asked me silly questions he didn’t really care what the answer was to them, and I flirted shyly, egging his terrible pick-up lines on because he was attractive and… familiar.  He was slender but held himself very proper, his neck was a marble pillar, his cheekbones were high and cut like glass, his eyes were dark, though not very deep, and his black hair hung to his shoulders, streaked through at the front with purple.  I suppose it only makes sense that sex and Kaoru go hand in hand for me.  After all, I had been fumbling around in bed with girls until he became my lover and so what I knew of sex, what I had understood as pleasure and intimacy, for nigh on a decade, was Kaoru.  I was simply reverting back to what I knew.

So he took me home.  His apartment was a ratty little annexed box hung over the side of the neon glare of the restaurant district below, and it reminded me a lot of where Kaoru and I had lived when we first met, both too poor to afford anywhere that wasn’t dangerous as all fuck to live in.  The hot stuff that had brought me home said his name was Soji and I guess that was alright, but I was far more interested when he started taking his clothes off.  I stripped down, too, and he started to kiss me and I could tell he had must have been sloshed because his mouth tasted like whiskey sour and it made me twitch, so I sucked his dick instead.  He was skinny and tattooed all over, with a silver ring through his belly-button, but I was looking up into his face the whole time, his face that could have passed for Kaoru in the dim light, though his dick was nothing like my old flame’s.  Kaoru had a cock like a piece of art, a pretty thing that was sized just enough to make blow-jobs comfortable and fucking pleasantly invasive, but this kid had a dick like a banana, kind of skinny, but long, and a curve in it that felt like he was going to cum into my sinuses.

He didn’t cum, though, threw me down on the bed and started sucking my dick, instead, and this is what I enjoyed, because if I looked at him at just the right angle, it was like reliving memories with Kaoru.  I wasn’t embarrassed when I came on the kid’s face, it had been a long time for me, but he looked a little disappointed, wiping my spunk off his cheek, and flipped me over on his mattress-on-the-floor, rolling a lubed condom on his banana dick, and shoved it in me.  Christ Almighty it hurt, there hadn’t been a single bit of warning, and he grabbed me by the hair and fucked me stupid.  Not like I couldn’t take such harsh treatment, I loved it, had always begged Kaoru to fuck me harder, but this kid had just crammed himself right in my ass like the FBI busting down the door of some neo-Nazi hideout.  I didn’t tell him to stop, though, no matter how much it hurt, because I didn’t know if I would be getting laid anytime soon after this.  I let him slam into me for almost an hour, and after the first fifteen minutes, the pain wore off, and it did start to feel good.  Kaoru had rarely been on top with me, but I was crazy for the feeling of being filled up, of being taken, and as dirty as I’m sure this was, going home with some stranger from a bar, letting him snatch my ass with his banana cock with hardly a “hello”, I loved it, and was coming, hard, sooner than I should have been proud to talk about.

He wasn’t done with me, though, when I shot another load all over his sheets, and apparently, he was a mean drunk, too, because he poured his liquor breath in my ear and pulled my hair more and for the last twenty minutes or so of the fuck, I felt more like I was getting my ass kicked instead of pounded, and when he was done he did kick my ass, pulled out of me and rolled me over and roughed me up some before telling me to get dressed and get the fuck out and I thought “Jesus H Cock Sucking Christ, I find the craziest mother fuckers.”

Kaoru looked at me funny when I walked into the therapist’s waiting room two days later, my hair pulled up, my lip split, and bruises on my neck, but I was smiling and I leaned down to hug him, asked him how the other day went.  He shrugged and hugged me back, telling me he had felt weird, telling a complete stranger intimate, painful things from his life, about us, how he had felt like such a monster retelling the story of the night we broke each other’s hands, my left, his right, and he told me that he was so glad I was doing this, that he was proud of me and there for me.  I blushed, ducking my head down, hiding behind my hair, thanking him.

We sat there for a while, quietly together, before Dr. Sanosuke popped his head out of the door, another patient leaving, and waved us in.  Kaoru sat down on the big leather couch and I sat beside him, space enough for another person between us.  Dr. Sanosuke sat down in his fancy office chair, his pad and pen in his lap, smiling amiably at us.  “So… how have you been since I last saw you, Daisuke?”

I shrugged.  “OK, I guess.  Still sober.  I don’t know if eleven days is a lot to be happy about, but…”

Kaoru turned to me, a serious look in those dark, geisha eyes.  “It is, Die.  It really is.”  Dr. Sanosuke nodded his agreement and Kaoru pressed on, scooting towards me a little.  “What happened to your lip?”

I laughed nervously, touching a hand to it.  “Oh, uh, funny story… I, sort of went home with a guy last night… he was… well, a little rough.”  I rubbed the fingers of my broken hand with the fingers of my whole right hand, shrugging, trying to treat what I said next like it was nothing.  “I was at the bar… I didn’t drink, just a soda, and… this guy… he looked like you.  Well, looked like you a few years ago.  I couldn’t help myself.”  I looked up, nervous he would find me pathetic.  “I haven’t been with anyone… since us.”

Kaoru did not look at me like I was pathetic, but more like he felt sorry for me, which I think was maybe worse.  I didn’t want his pity.  I wanted him to care because we still loved each other, not because I was some pitiful drunkard he felt obligated to tend to.  His unbroken hand took my unbroken hand, the ones we had hurt on either side of us, and squeezed my fingers.  “I’m sorry, Daisuke.  I know it’s hard.  We were so used to being with each other…  in a way I wish you had found someone, too, but I know you don’t need that right now… I know you need to just focus on you.”  I was about to snap and ask him how in the fuck he knew what I needed, but I was able to keep my mouth shut.  That was the angry thing the booze unleashed still lingering in me.  Kaoru probably did know what was best for me.

Dr. Sanosuke had us discuss our fears to each other, in regards to our prolonged relationship, and what our fears were for the rest of the band and we both agreed on the same three main anxieties:

That we would tear each other apart; that we were trying too hard and maybe we just didn’t get along at all anymore (though even as we said it and stared at each other with such a desperate loving, we both knew this was untrue).

That we would tear the band apart, that I couldn’t stay sober, that Shinya would get fed up and tell us he was gone and without him, there was no Dir en grey because Dir en grey was the five of us.  With another drummer, which we would never do anyway, we were some other band; some other band that would probably suck.

That what had happened was already causing too much of a shit storm with the hungry media and even when everything had gotten all patched up, when we knew how to function around each other and I wasn’t a drunk and both of us had recovered from the injuries we’d inflicted, that what we had built up and won for ten plus years would have fallen too out of balance to sustain.

Kaoru held my hand through the whole hour, even when we actually got pretty heated, practically yelling at each other about what had happened with Kyo that night.  I still hated seeing them together, I told him I didn’t hate Kyo, and didn’t care that they were dating, but I couldn’t stand to see it, I was too jealous, and I told Kaoru and apologized immediately after that if the fans started calling us fags and dropping us like yesterday’s skin cells, it was his fault.  Kaoru cried a little at this.  He must have been thinking the same thing, blaming himself for the speculative talk about the photos from the concert of what we knew was a truly sexual exchange between them, and everyone else on the planet just wondered.

Seeing him cry, I felt like a prick and I pulled my hand away, but he grabbed it again and squeezed.  “I’ve become somebody I don’t know, Kaoru,” I told him.  “I’ve become somebody that pushes away the people I need closest to me.  I’ve become somebody that hurts you.  Sure, we used to hit each other anyway, but not like this.  We’d never really hurt each other before, not like this.”  His hand was just as warm and fit the same way it did the last time I’d held it when we had our last dinner together.  “I…”  Say it, Daisuke.  “I am… so… sorry.”

Dr. Sanosuke wasn’t even there, as far as we were concerned.  He’d gotten the ball rolling and set up a safe environment for us to talk, and now we were doing our own damage control.  Kaoru leaned into me, kissed my hair while I sobbed into his shoulder.  He cooed to me and for once, I took it for what it was worth instead of wishing his touches were because he was still my lover.  “We all love you, very much.  You know that.”  I nodded.  “Kyo, too.  He loves you, but he’s so afraid you can’t look at him the same anymore.  We both feel like shit, really… but you must know that I love him, yeah?”

I nodded.  I did.  I’d seen the way they looked at each other, watched them kiss, watched Kyo hold Kaoru the way I used to and Kaoru emote his soul out towards Kyo the way he had to me when we were like that, when we loved each other, when we were so obsessed with one another.  If I could look past my jealousy, and I couldn’t yet, I’m sure I would have been happy for them, but I still had a territorial anger watching my friend touch and feel and kiss what used to be privileged to me.  Kaoru sat back in the couch, his long legs crossed, pushing his tattooed hand back through his long hair.  He was so beautiful, he would always be so beautiful.  “Shinya isn’t talking to any of us.  I think he answered for Toshiya the other day, but he’s completely shut himself off.”  He was smiling as he said this, like he knew something I didn’t, but I couldn’t ask.

We fell silent again and Dr. Sanosuke informed us our time was almost over, told us he was very impressed with how today had gone, could see that with a little more time, dependent upon my prolonged sobriety, we could mend the friendship we had carried with us all along, maybe even meet with all five of us, Shinya, too, and get us all back on the same page, get us all back to where we used to be; a family unit, the closest five people on the planet that would do anything for each other at any cost.

Kaoru walked me back to Toshiya’s apartment and hugged me at the door, telling me he felt better, doing this, talking with me, knowing I was getting better and I squeezed him hard and just said that I loved him and to call me if he couldn’t make it next week and needed to reschedule.

For the next three days, I didn’t drink.  I made it two whole weeks, sober.  On day fifteen, I opened a beer, but I poured it all down the drain before I could drink it.  The next two days were terrible and I felt like shit, but then I had another session with Kaoru and we cried and laughed together, recounting our relationship, mourning it like it deserved.  We’d never really dealt with the loss of our love, and it felt a little like a funeral.

Here Lies What Was Once Die and Kaoru;  May Their Memories Carry On.

The next week we met with Kyo, and I was still sober.  Kyo sat cross legged on the couch, his back turned against the arm, and told me for twenty minutes how afraid he was of me, how scared he’d become to hurt me, and how insane that hurt had made me, and then how he acknowledged that I was changing, that I was doing very, very good.  I just stared at him, a little unbelieving, and tried not to think about him fucking Kaoru, tried not to label him as the enemy, because he wasn’t.  I was still working on that one, but it was better, there was less hate in my heart.  I didn’t want to strangle him, anymore, at least.

For a month, I was sober, and for another month after that, I was still sober.  Kaoru and I met once a week, once with Toshiya, who had been such a pillar of support for me, he and Evan both, and had always been the peacemaker with all of us.  He explained to Dr. Sanosuke what it had been like for him to watch Kaoru and I fall apart, what That Night had been like, Kaoru and I both wincing with guilt to hear it in the words of someone else, and Toshiya kept rubbing at the scar under his lip, the one that had been left when he’d tried to break up one of our fights and we’d both turned on him and busted his teeth right through his skin.

A third month went by, six months now since I had started this whole endeavor, since my hand, now healed, but still regaining mobility, had been crushed by Kaoru’s boot, and since Shinya had left for Osaka and we had not seen hide nor hair of him.  Three months, and I hadn’t had a single drink.  It was a daunting thing to think about.

Evan and Toshiya had gone out one night and I was in the apartment by myself, watching TV, flipping through the channels.  “Vinushka” was playing on the music network and I turned the TV off.

I was actually surprised with I heard a very aggravated “moshi moshi” on the other end of the line, I never thought Shinya would pick up, hadn’t even thought about it when I pulled out my phone to call him, assuming it would be fruitless, and I stuttered for a second.  “Hey, Shin.  What, uh, what’re you doing?”

Shinya huffed.  “Getting my fucking dick sucked, Daisuke.  Jesus, I swear there’s a microchip in your brain… do you realize every time you call me after some long stint of no communication, it’s always when I’m getting laid?”

I laughed.  I didn’t know if he was kidding or not, Shinya had a weird way, but I imagined some round-bottomed woman on her knees with Shinya’s dick in her mouth, his veined hands in her hair and the phone tucked to his ear with his shoulder, an annoyed expression on his face.  We had all joked how funny it was that Shinya had always been so feminine in features, and yet was not only the most masculine, but the only truly heterosexual one out of the five of us.  I sighed at the image, finding it somehow amusing.  “Gomen, ne?  I… well, I just wanted to let you know that… I’ve been sober for three months now.  Me and Kaoru have been going to therapy.  Things are actually really good.”  I chewed on my lip.  “Ya know, other than you not being here.  We miss you, Shinya-kun.”

There was a very long silence in which Shinya only breathed into the phone and I swear maybe he wasn’t kidding because the faint sounds of slurping (a blow job, perhaps?) could be heard somewhere in the signal.  Shinya finally huffed and I could hear him giving in.  “Fine.  Fine!  I’ll be in Tokyo this weekend, tell them all to make sure we’ve got reservations for somewhere private so we can all talk.”

I whooped, triumphant.  “Hounto?  Ah, Shin!  You got it!”

Shinya moaned for the tiniest half of a second, I didn’t think he was kidding at all anymore about his present activities, but I could hear him smile.  “Mm, really.  And Daisuke?  I’ve missed you, too.”


	4. Investigating the Nature of Prosperity

We were all crammed into Toshiya’s car, me in the front seat, Toshiya driving, Kaoru squeezed in the middle of the back seat between Shinya and Kyo. We had declared the last day of my sixth month of sobriety a Guy’s Night Out. It had been a long time, really, since we had done something as friends instead of as a band.

Currently, we were driving through a tunnel, singing loudly to the stereo like teenage girls rather than men in their thirties, me and Toshiya the loudest. It was fun, just cutting up with them, and though it seemed strange, as this was what I was used to, to not be blasted while we were just hanging like this, I felt better for it. Six whole months… I was playing guitar again. Badly, my fingers had to be re-taught to find the chords and the muscles of my palm started to ache quickly, but I was playing again, and so was Kaoru, and we were much happier that way.

Shinya had been back to see us a handful of times in the past couple of months, though he is exceptionally quiet and his eyes, when they do meet mine, make me look away quickly, though it is hard to tell whether this is due to the sharp glint in his stare, or the guilt I am racked with just to see his face. For a while there it looked pretty iffy. For a while there, I could have been the reason Dir en grey had finally closed the curtain.

But here we are, all crammed in Toshiya’s car ready to go out and have a good time together, and I’m reminded of almost a decade previous of a similar scene with different seating arrangements, me and Kaoru making out in the back of Shinya’s four-door, all drunk, all happy, all very young and in love with what we were and who we were and living for the moment.

Tonight, we were living for the past in hopes for the prosperity of the future. Toshiya had found a dry bar in the far downtown area and we’d decided to go out and celebrate a handful of things: We were writing another album, still in the brainstorming stage, but ambitious of completion, we had been dabbling with the idea of a small tour, a tester for me to see if I could stay sober in such an environment, going around all the hole-in-the-wall clubs of Japan, venues we had not played in years, and of course, we were commemorating that I hadn’t had a drink in six months, which was the focal point of why the other things were even possibilities for us. Just one drink in the last half year and there would be no tour, no night out, no album. Shinya would still be in Osaka, seriously considering how to figure out living as a normal person.

I had asked him what he would have done if I wasn’t cleaning up. He said that he was going to quit the band, cut us out of his life, but what did that mean? Would he find some other band to be the heartbeat of? Would he follow in the footsteps of his idol, Hayashi Yoshiki, and begin working on the production side of the music business? He just looked at me and shook his head as if to say “Silly boy” and told me he would be done, forever, with music. If there was no Dir en grey, Terachi Shinya would officially become one of the legion of normal jack-offs.

Toshiya pulled up to a stoplight and we had the windows down, Shinya with his head out the window, the rest of us smoking, and a car full of girls in their twenties pulled up next to us, did a double-take, and started shouting excitedly, waving. We waved back and hung out the window, and it was high fives all around until the people behind us started honking that the light was now green. Toshiya hit the gas and we all laughed, waving goodbye to the girls, who were turning.

We pulled up at the bar, a place called Friendly’s (no joke, the kana glowed white against a blue Plexiglas sign, fu-ren-du-rii-zu) and we got out, already judging the place, which from the outside looked like it might be a revisitation of us going to a shit-hole gay bar in Georgia, having a day off after the Atlanta show. (That’s a story for later, but let me give you a snapshot: First off, we’re all delicate looking Asian men (even now, after the death of our visual period) who don’t speak very good English, except for Toshiya (not someone you want being your liaison in such an establishment, I promise), and apparently, being in a gay bar in the South requires some serious balls in the first place.) We filed in, Kyo paying the cover for all of us in the cramped, dark-painted front room, and proceeded into the main room of the club. We all breathed a little sigh of relief at seeing the inside, a nice dance floor, tables to the side, a stage that sat bare and dark at the back, a bar serving only nonalcoholic drinks and chocolates that were assembled like sushi rolls.

I had a tiny moment of fun-house effect. I mean, by definition, a bar is synonymous with booze, it was kind of like watching porn without sex, but I made myself think of this place as a dance joint. There weren’t many people here yet, it was still kind of early, so we all sat at a table in the back for now, Kyo pressed into Kaoru’s side, Kaoru’s arm around his slim shoulders, Toshiya on the other side of Kaoru, Shinya beside Kyo, and me on the outside of the booth by drummer. Kyo was the first to try and initiate conversation. Awkward silences had become pretty prevalent among us, so he choose a neutral subject, asking Toshiya if he had heard from Evan since he had gotten back to New York. Toshiya nodded, giving that innocent blush he always got when his boyfriend was mentioned. “Yeah, he called, he got back fine, didn’t get blown up or anything.”

Shinya, who was behind on the details of our lives recently, persisted on the subject of the American. “How are you guys doing?”

Toshiya shrugged one shoulder, looking a little less excited now. “Mm… the more serious we get, the more difficult this whole half-way-around-the-world thing becomes. Ya know… I miss him when he’s gone, he throws little shit-fits that we aren’t together, and thirteen hours apart. We’ll work it out, I guess.” He deflected the attention from himself and turned it back on Shinya. “How have you been? It’s weird not talking to you all the time. How’s your mom?”

Shinya shrugged, his blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, longer than it had been in a good amount of time, and cut with less layers. I liked it this way, it made him look his age elegantly. “She’s OK. She didn’t know what to do with herself, having me around so much, so I think it perked her up, but I get the impression that she likes the time alone now that I’m back in Tokyo.” When we were recording or rehearsing for tours, Shinya had a small apartment a few blocks from mine, or at least, my place that I was still paying rent for that I still had most of my shit at which I‘d moved into when Kaoru and I broke up, even though I wasn‘t staying there right now.

Shinya nudged Kyo and the singer blinked, having gotten absorbed in the wash of color painted by the lights on the far wall of the club. “Huh? Oh, yeah… it’s good to have you back, Shin.” Shinya smiled in that terse little way of his and we started discussing the recent rash of robberies in me and Shinya’s neighborhood. It was all pretty boring for about the next hour, but at least we were talking. Kaoru made some joke about not having to deal with the A2 again from last tour (the kid was a total fucking idiot, but Kaji, our head sound guy for the tours, and one of the core group of techs for recording, needed somebody else to share the load, seeing as it was impractical, though possible, to run monitors from FOH) and Toshiya laughed, smiling widely, which made me gasp a little.

“You got your braces off!” We were still living together, or more, I was still living in his guest room, but he had told me that his appointment earlier today was lunch with a friend. He smiled wider, showing the dental work off. It was clear that he had also had a bleaching treatment done. We all gave him a little round of applause and Kyo pulled out his phone, snapping a quick picture of Toshiya’s “new grill” and Toshiya blushed, what we called his “limp Mohawk” falling into his face.

“Yeah… I love it. I feel so much better, not looking like a fourteen year old, but it feels _funny_!” He ran his tongue over his teeth, which I had been told felt slimy after the removal of the metal contraption, and I smiled.

“It looks really good. I’m happy for you.” And I was. Toshiya had always been the gorgeous one, the bubbly one, but he had also always been fairly self conscious to have what was undeniably a bad case of the Snaggle Tooth.

The place had filled up a little and the bass-heavy music had been cranked some and Toshiya insisted we all dance, grabbing me because we were both on the outside, tugging me by the wrist onto the dance floor and starting to move his long body in a way that had always impressed me and made me vaguely envious and how desirable he could make himself, and the effortlessness with which he did it. Kyo had pulled Kaoru with him and was grooving with the same moves he used on stage (which we had learned was fairly similar to Latina girls in the club), Kaoru the color of his scarlet t-shirt, trying to dance along with his lover (I had gotten a little more comfortable with the idea that that’s what he was) and failing miserably.

Shinya was just lucky there was an odd number of us, getting to stay seated at the table, watching us, his chin rested in his hand. I could feel his eyes telling us “You all look like fucking idiots” but there was the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Toshiya was running his fingers through my hair, rolling his hips, lip bitten coyly and I felt a very sudden, short, and sharp pang of discomfort when my brain clicked my current imagery into one I found erotic. It was something I had been dealing with recently, living with him, because I was going through a dry spell of the sexual kind as well as the booze, and Toshiya was… magnificently blessed in the area of looks. I mean, seriously. The boy was _sexy_. But! It was just awkward thinking of him like that, he was like the little brother of the band, and any thoughts of him as being sexually stimulating were generally accompanied by mild shame.

Fortuitously for me, Toshiya decided that Shinya was not going to get out of this little escapade and left me to go grab the slender drummer (I promise, he eats, don’t worry) and had to mildly _fight_ him onto the dance floor. I laughed, sitting down to watch and I wish someone had come picked my jaw up off the floor for me because I was stunned to watch Shinya play along, giving Toshiya a taste of his own medicine, pink rag of a tongue coming out to wet his full bottom lip, dark eyes spilling rivers of lust, body moving with wanton, the likes of which had never been seen, his hands roaming Toshiya’s body like he wanted to _eat_ him.

I shook my head to clear it, looking away. Maybe I was a sex addict, too, and this was what withdraw was like: Kaoru was one thing, he had actually sucked my dick on a regular basis for ten years, but I was sitting here finding my band mates, practically my brothers, very arousing. I felt kind of like washing my penis in bleach.

Kaoru had finally given up and I had zoned out, texting my brother, who had just gotten out of jail (again) and was sneakily wondering if he could see me while he was in Tokyo, and I let the little shit think I didn’t know he just wanted money out of me. A strong hand closed around my wrist and yanked me up and I was surprised to see Kyo grinning at me. “Come on, you. Dance with me.” Kyo had been walking on eggshells around me since he and Kaoru had begun dating, not wanting to cause friction in our friendship and band dynamics, what with me having been with Kaoru the entire time we had known each other, and a little afraid I might fall off the wagon and decide to beat his ass.

I’d thought about it a couple times. Alright, a lot of times. But I hadn’t actually done it, so I was pretty proud of myself.

I obliged his request and he backed himself up to Toshiya, who had been stolen by a mildly attractive man probably in his late thirties, and I danced with him, my mind not on the activity we were currently engaged in, but more the conceptual situation we were experiencing. Kyo and I had always been very good friends. He fascinated me with his odd disposition, his quiet, private nature outside of his public, performer façade, his poetic ability with words and speaking, and now I felt like a wedge had been driven between us, and who I wanted to blame, I logically knew I shouldn’t.

Here’s where reality and my perception get skewed, and I fight myself on the validity of my emotions all the time. What really happened with me and Kaoru is our relationship ended because we drifted apart, on a romantic level, and some on a level of friendship, too, which was only made worse by the fact that I dealt with my loneliness after him by getting black-out drunk on a regular basis. In the time after, which, considering that Kaoru and I had been going sour for at least a year or two before we split, was not very unreasonable, Kyo finally made his move, and he and Kaoru had been dating ever since. Over a year now. I couldn’t say I really argued. If anybody was going to take care of Kaoru after me, I wanted it to be Kyo. He was so good to him. Better than I had been to him, probably, our relationship with each other had been the first serious one for both of us and we couldn’t, either of us, be expected to have made it perfect.

But I was chronically jealous, and a control freak, and still held some lingering sense of inadequacy that Kaoru and I had not, as I had hoped in the beginning, stayed together. In my eyes, or at least how I saw it then, drunken most of the time and trying to dig my claws into a relationship already falling apart, what happened was Kaoru stopped loving me and I couldn’t get through to him enough to try and convince him otherwise. We grew distant, me trying to reach out to him, but always failing because I wasn’t good at expressing my emotions, and only six months after I had moved out, Kyo, my best friend, decides to steal him from me. I don’t know how you steal something that doesn’t belong to anybody, but that’s how I felt. I hated him. I couldn’t stand looking at him, either of them. I know that this version is insane and manic, and I suppose I don’t really feel this way anymore, but the emotions I had felt while under the practically constant influence of alcohol had been deeply engrained, and it was hard to condition myself away from them.

I could tell Kyo was picking up on my mood, his muddy brown eyes regarding me curiously, and he looped his tattooed arms, soft-skinned and muscular, around my neck, pulling me down to shout into my ear over the music. “I’m sorry, for the way everything turned out. You know that, right?” One of his hands had moved down to rub my back and I smiled sadly, resting my hands at the back of his shoulders. “I never meant to hurt you, Die.”

It could have been empty niceties, it could have just been damage control, but only if anyone other than Kyo had said those words. Kyo didn’t speak unless truth was about to come out of his mouth, subjective though it often was. I nodded and wrapped my arms fully around him, hugging him tight. “I know that, Kyo-kun…” And I did. I wanted to say I was sorry, too, but I knew that wasn’t completely honest yet, so I bit my tongue and pulled away and we danced a little longer.

All in all, the night was fun. I felt that we had finally fallen back into a familiar pace with each other and it was the most comfortable I had felt in their presence since before That Night. Toshiya made a loop around our section of Tokyo, dropping everybody off, Kaoru and Kyo at their apartment (Kaoru had moved out of the one he and I used to share and in with our vocalist), Shinya to his temporary place in the restaurant district, and then back towards Dozo Park, going round and round up the parking garage, both of us into the building, elevator, and down the hall to his flat. He threw his arm fondly around me when the doors of the elevator opened, all smiles, obviously having enjoyed himself, and I took a strange comfort in the touch, in the smell of him. I suppose there was just something in his pheromones that calmed me, the tang of his sweat making me take a deep breath of it, sighing it out, feeling lax. Kaoru’s sweat used to do something similar, but I knew that to be a more olfactory reflex with my memory, his sweat almost always registering memorized sensations of afterglow, of lying in the arms of someone I loved, of _being_ loved. I felt thankful that my sense of smell was beginning to correct itself. Now, whenever he was near me and needing a little freshening of deodorant, the only twinge of arousal or longing I felt was simply because I adored the smell of a man.

Toshiya opened the door and locked it back after us, going to grab two bottles of water from the fridge, handing me one, taking all of his things out of his pockets and changing into sleepwear right in the door of the little laundry room. He had very little modesty, and he shouldn’t! As I noted (and was beginning to note with an increasing frequency that made me want another bleach bath), he was a very attractive man. He cracked his bottle of water and took a big gulp, kissing my cheek with lips now cold from the frigid drink. “I’m gonna head to bed, maybe watch a little late night television. See you in the morning, DaiDai!”

I didn’t see him the next morning, I had gotten up and dressed while he was still in the shower and went to see Dr. Sanosuke and then to group. I left a note telling him I might not return until late in the evening, wanting to see if Shinya maybe wanted to have dinner, a request that had taken quite a level of bravery on my part, but Shinya had insisted he was feeling a little under the weather and maybe another time. There was something in his voice that told me he was not under the weather, and I wondered if he was setting me up, that he knew I should go home early, he had a weird way of warning us when he had his psychic flashes (which he always denies but we are all unchangeably convinced of), and I wondered why when I opened the door of the apartment and stepped in.

The lights were all low, as if Toshiya had gone out or something, but there was sound coming from the living room. The TV was on. Maybe he had left it on? I took two steps around the front hall and realized what I was hearing from the television was obviously pornography from the scripted grunts and lines like “Oh yeah, fuck my ass! Fuck it! Mmmm… you’re sooooo big!” and I had to stop myself from laughing. I peaked cautiously around the corner and what I saw made me feel like a horrible loser, and like my dick was about to explode, it sprung erect so quickly.

Toshiya was lit only by the light of the flat screen, I couldn’t actually see what was playing, his toes curled around the edge of the coffee table, knees spread, ass hung off the edge of the couch, his cock in one hand, and a thick double-ended dildo in the other, fucking himself. Don’t worry, the dildo was not double-ended because he had a foot and a half of silicon in him, but because (clever, indeed) he had it bent at its middle to make thrusting it savagely into himself a little easier. His mouth hung open and he was panting heavily, his dark eyes hooded, cast into shadow by the light of the TV when he threw his head back, hair sticking to his sweat-sheened skin, and something inside me clinched when I watched him, with a choked cry of pleasure, cum. The hand around his dick had slowed, milking it gingerly, but the hand with the dildo was moving faster, harder, deeper, and the choked cry became near sobs, whining up into a high moan as he braced his feet against the table and arced up off the couch briefly.

He laid panting for breath for a while, I could tell the orgasm had been intense by the way his body sagged like it was made of liquid, and when he got up, pulling the dildo out of his ass with a little moan and wiping his jiz off himself with a washcloth, I froze, poised to run, wondering what in the hell I was going to do if he found me standing there by the door, but I was blessed, and he walked towards his room, away from me, coming back a second later without the dildo and flipped off the TV, turning on the lights in the living room, and went back into his room, heard turning on the shower.

I breathed a sigh of relief and fully entered the apartment, stepping into the room that now smelled heavily of sex, and I simply couldn’t resist the urge. Dirty as it made me feel, horrible, even, I went quietly to the guest room where I had been staying for six months, stripped off all my clothes, laid on the bed, and jerked off, the image of Toshiya arced up from the couch, mouth hung open in the intense throws of orgasm, bringing me to a fairly hard peak of my own. I stayed in my room for the rest of the night, reading or browsing aimless things on the internet, the whole time only half aware of what I was doing, too distracted by the now unshakable fact that I wanted to fuck my friend.

I have never been so thankful for Kaoru being such an overbearing band leader. The next few weeks were easy to keep occupied in, spent buckled down heavily into writing music, mostly piecing together and filling out little tags of things he had written, mixing them with pieces we had come up with, Kyo already equipped with a whole stack of lyrics, some just snatches of words that were the verbal equivalent of a beautiful color; form- and functionless, but lovely. He pulled from these to start piecing melodies together over whichever piece of music we were building, almost always writing at least a section of lyrics inspired by the music, itself. He was always amazing to watch, and I felt like it was almost more voyeuristic that seeing Toshiya masturbate, or he and Evan have sex, because what happened when Kyo was writing was so much more intimate.

Kaoru was very quiet and distant when he wasn’t giving us mildly rude-toned orders, but that was to be expected. Kaoru fell into what we called thinking holes when he composed, a manic state whose often unsavory accompanying attitude we all tolerated because what Kaoru produced and got us all to help make ended up being well worth listening to him bitch and be impatient. Today he had sat in the corner for nearly an hour, guitar patched directly into his laptop and back out into his headphones. He was playing the same recorded four bars over and over, adjusting the levels minutely, listening, listening, tweaking, listening, sitting with his eyes closed and his brow furrowed and then playing another snatch, jotting it down onto paper, recording it, listening again. I’m not sure how many of our fans know about, or care about, recording techniques, levels, clarity, mixing, all that shit, but Kaoru is both a perfectionist and a master, to the extent that if our songs are played acoustically or on a flat EQ they sound nothing like the recorded (intended) piece. (Note: Don’t try it. If you just flatten out your EQ and play back one of our recorded songs, it isn’t going to sound too different, because the finished song has already been mixed. Get what I’m saying? If you don’t, don’t feel bad, it took me years to catch onto it, and I still just nod for the sake of being spared an explanation sometimes. I know enough to know what I don’t like and how to fix it, so I can‘t complain.)

Please note that this is not the same as a pop singer having their voice pitch corrected and digitally remastered to sound like something other than shit. More, Kaoru intentionally factors in what can be done to an instrument in the writing of a song. I don’t really have the ear for it, some of the more subtle differences to him sound exactly the same to me, but we all have a different ear and taste, anyway. All I know is that what comes out as a finished pieces is absolutely genius. I suppose it’s a little like making a mixer an instrument in and of itself. Shinya is similarly picky. Go on, I dare you. Listen to nearly any song at any point, from Kisou onward, and I _dare_ you to tell me you can’t clearly hear every single sound coming from his kit. In a lot of rock music, especially of the harder, louder variety, drums can become a wash and blend in with the bass. Not Shinya. Maybe I’m silly, maybe you’re thinking “That’s not true, I listening to [insert generic, mainstream band here] and I can hear the drums perfectly!” but there’s something about the particular quality of the way Shinya records his tracks that has always had a very impressive cleanness to it for me.

Toshiya and I are far less picky, and Kyo is easy to please so long as his voice sounds clear and has a nice amount of edge to it without being too tinny. Toshiya is happy so long as the sound is full, and I (Kaoru and I have had to compromise on this for years) actually like a decent amount of mids. (Just so that you feel in-the-know, mids are usually the first to go or be overpowered in a sound check by virtually any band. They do tend to make a signal muddy, but I‘ve learned to play with them and enjoy them as the underdog, liking to leave the overall levels pretty even.)

But today we aren’t filling the air with technical jargon that I hate usually goes over my head (especially when I know by all rights it shouldn’t). Today we’re just playing. Everything starts out acoustic, or nearly. We sit around in a circle with our instruments, Kyo with just himself and Shinya with a small five piece set to spring board from. Kaoru will play a whole song that he has tried with one instrument to encompass a whole piece and from there, we all build, sometimes filling in holes he has left. It isn’t always Kaoru who starts, but he is the most prolific of us and is usually always the provider of that first integral piece of inspiration. Once we feel satisfied with this skeletal version, we record it down and each sync iPods to go home later and perfect our individual parts.

Sometimes what we come back with ends up being incongruent with the modified versions of our fellow band mates and sometimes, something that happens infrequently and is always amazing when it does, the pieces that get put back together make something completely different from the original prompt, and yet each of our parts meld perfectly with the rest. Those are the times we know we’ve become real musicians, good musicians, and very good friends.

Today what Kaoru started to play sounded familiar, there were elements of our earlier works and I hated that I couldn’t pin the song, because I was quite certain it was the same riff but inverted and tweaked ever-so slightly. The notes were forlorn and methodically off-kilter, seeming broken, the dynamics spanning a wide range and I could see he was not done with the techniques he had used in Vinushka, though when he was done playing he informed us that he intends it to be played all on electric, and I was immediately interested. Toshiya was rolling his lip between his teeth and made a loose gesture with his right hand, already fingering out notes against the neck of his bass. “Play that first part again?” he asked and Kaoru played while Toshiya picked out a bass line which was more or less an inversion of the melody and I recognized the song now as having been (or nearly) a section of Macabre. Toshiya seemed to realize it to and blinked, laughing a little with a soft “oh!”.

Kaoru shook his head saying “Naw, I like that!” and they played the section together again, Toshiya adding a few little flairs now that he realized he was already familiar with the music, and when they stopped, Kyo continued to sing softly, eyes squeezed shut, trying to grasp what he could feel coming, I could see it, knew that feeling so intimately and he kept humming to himself, all of us falling quiet to let him work. He jotted something down and hummed it again, giving one curt nod as he set his pen back down and Kaoru continued on. I at first started to mimic him to get used to the piece and then started to separate it. We played through it a couple times, Shinya playing with silencer pads on his kit, and at length, what started out as one guitar, one piece of music, had become two, me branching off and Kaoru adjusting his playing to fit. We stopped a few times and argued certain sections, not violently, just usual bickering that had always been present when we write together, and Kyo had put an ear plug into his right ear to block us out for a while, his left one only hearing muffled sounds and turned away from us, anyway. By the time Kaoru and I had finally worked the kinks out of the way our two parts mingled together, he had mocked up a vocal part and a fairly word-dense few verses with a two line chorus. When we ran it through once more with it all put together, Shinya played along like the piece was done and he had practiced it a thousand times.

Two more run-throughs and Kaoru set a digital recorder down on the table we were all sat around, never very particular with first drafts, and we played one more time to record it. When he stood to go and load the track onto his computer, all of our personal musical devices set by his laptop to sync, I noticed how much time had gone by and was amazed to suddenly find I was starving. We had been working on the song for nearly three hours.

Once all of us had been handed back our respective iPods, Kaoru called it a day and we started to pack up. We had been renting this studio out for years and Kaoru had finally acquired it indefinitely so that we could leave things here without worrying about it being used by other bands. We had even painted it over a long spring day a few years ago, each of us getting a wall and Kaoru getting the small stage at the far end, which he had painted painstakingly at each of our spots with individualized, albeit abstract, little scenes. My tattoo had come from his painting at my space on stage left, a red snake sliding through bright gold dunes of sand under a white-hot moon. I didn’t regret it now. Lover or not, Kaoru would always mean a great deal to me. I set about turning everything off as the rest of them filed towards the door and Kaoru locked up, Kyo and Toshiya already heading down the stairs out onto the street, talking in quiet tones about how Kyo’s mom was doing, a subject we didn’t touch on much often unless something particularly peculiar had happened recently, and the lyrics from today made a little more sense.

Kyo’s mother had raised him by herself in a house at the backside of a temple in Kyoto. We had all met her only once and though she was sweet, a slim woman that had aged well, it was apparent, even medicated properly, that she suffered from fairly severe schizophrenia. She had had Kyo young, an unwed mother who had gone to the temples to work so she would not be a dishonorable sore on her family, and, as the disorder does not fully set on in women until about twenty five, Kyo was of an age when it began to advance that by the time he was a teenager, he was the parent in the relationship. Seeing her like that, both in a sense of having to take care of his own mother, and her psychotic episodes, had scarred him permanently. Knowing that the monks and priests had been Kyo’s refuge during the worst years of it, his mid to late teens when she refused to continue taking her medication, was the only reason he was never on the receiving end of my snide religious distaste, though he was very subtle about the way he displayed his beliefs, anyway, almost unnoticed when he prayed, only truly obvious on the occasions he decided to ring bells (which I think he did more for the joy of it than the ritualistic aspect) and actually visited temples.

I know, I know, nothing about Niimura Kyo seems like the Buddhist type, does it? In fact, he shares my distaste of theistic, organized faiths, but let the man get started in on the concepts of spiritual energies and vibrational negation of counterintuitive influences and you’ll find a well-read and devoutly taught Shinto somewhere in that petite, screaming demon. I wonder if Kaoru has found out yet (knowing like I do that our dear leader-sama sleeps like a rock), like I learned when I used to room with Kyo at the hotels on tour when Kaoru and I fought, that he wakes nearly every morning (though he usually goes back to sleep after) and watches the sunrise, no matter where he is, and chants. The first time I was annoyed, but I finally fell back asleep while NAMYOHORENGEIKYO lulled me into the most peaceful dream state I had had in years. There’s a very strange resonant tone in that chant, a high, clear tone that is not sharp like feedback, but open and warm. I’ve always found it odd that this tone exists even when the chant is being done by a single person.

Shinya was distracted by a flyer posted to a corkboard in the open-air hallway of the building and I waited for him, Kaoru continuing on after the others. As soon the top of his head disappeared beyond the steps, Shinya turned to me and I knew that this was the second time he had psychically manipulated me that month, knowing I would wait for him if given a reason to, or maybe he had ninjaed my mind and made me wait for him, I don’t know. All I knew was that for the first time in months, Shinya and I were alone together and I was a little afraid he was going to kick my ass, to tell you true. But when he looked at me and gave me the slightest smile, his eyes were softer than I had seen them in a year and he put his arm around my shoulders, leading me down the stairs in the path of our fellows, squeezing me briefly in a one-armed hug. “I’m starving, wanna go grab a bite to eat?”

I felt my lips pull up in what I’m sure was the smile of a weary man finally given some bit of triumph and nodded. “Of course.” I put my arm around his waist amiably and we walked down to the corner, Toshiya pulling the car around, Kyo and Kaoru pulling up beside him, waving, and turning right. The younger man leaned out of the window, the heater making billows of steam puff up, it was snowing outside, and he gave me a little look. I shrugged. “I’ll meet up with you later, me and Shinya are going to have dinner,” and Toshiya understood without having to be told that this was something that we needed to do privately, nodding and telling me he’d leave the light on in the kitchen so I didn’t kill myself coming in if I got back too terribly late.

Shinya and I kept walking down through the city, this part of town was always fairly quiet, especially on a day like this, late in the evening, almost dark, and it was bitter cold, but lovely. I looked at Shinya and there were snowflakes poised delicately in his eyelashes and I wanted, to my surprise and chagrin, to cry. This was the first real sign he had given me since That Night that I had begun to regain his trust, and I took such things with much honor and seriousness. Shinya caught me looking and gave me an inquisitive face. “What?”

I shrugged, squeezing him a little closer. “You’re so beautiful, Shinya.” His black eyes snapped open and I saw the briefest flush touch his cheeks, already red from the cold.

“Are you hitting on me?” he asked, joking, but in a serious tone.

I barked out a laugh, sending a puff of steam into the air. “Aaaw, no, I guess I just haven’t seen your pretty face enough lately, but if you _want_ me to hit on you--” I grabbed him with both arms this time and made very loud kissing noises at his face, to which he responded with a half-hearted get away and laughs. He shook his head, coming back into step with me, our elbows brushing, and bowed his head, tucking a wisp of his blond hair that had escaped from its tie back from his face.

“…thank you…” I heard so quietly it could have been the chilly wind, and I spared him by not pressing it, both of us walking in comfortable silence to a restaurant we frequented when spending lots of time at the studio. I opened the door for him and we were both hit with a blast of warm air that made us sigh, shifting in our coats as the hostess bowed to us, asking us if it was just going to be the two of us and leading us to a table. Shinya set his bag down and nudged it under his chair with the inside of his foot. I had left my acoustic at the studio, seeing as I had another and more preferred one sitting on my bed in Toshiya’s apartment. We both worked our way out of our jackets and when the neck of his long-sleeved shirt pulled to the side, I saw an angry, dark bruise stretching from the back of his neck up across his shoulder, but the cloth shifted back and he had not noticed that I had seen.

We all hated that he did this. Shinya was, without a doubt, the strongest of us, in nearly every way. He could take the most bullshit (though he did not suffer a fool gladly, and was well known for making comments back to thoughtless reporters that were razor sharp and bitter cold), he could probably kick all of our asses, and he was the best at processing and dealing with his own issues. Shinya’s childhood had been mildly dysfunctional, his parents tended to scream at each other constantly, but the real punctuations of torment that lingered in him were his frequent bouts of bad health. Shinya had a rare, mildly aggressive auto-immune disorder (words that spelled AIDS to us when he finally admitted to us that he was living with a chronic illness) that had been misdiagnosed as anemia when he was a child and so he periodically spent most of his time growing up in a hospital or in bed and home schooled, wondering why the treatments weren’t working, which meant his already love-sick and overprotective mother was able to make him feel even more helpless and weak. It was a little ironic now that she was beginning to show signs of age and he was taking care of her. Either way, Shinya spent his most developmental years being taught he was fragile and must always be careful and that he could not be independent because it was so easy for him to get hurt or get sick, but by the time he was in high school, after finally receiving an accurate diagnosis, he’d read whole tomes on his illness and knew better. The first three or so years we never knew, he seemed fine, occasionally getting sick like anyone did, but it was the bruising that tipped us off. He did become anemic when his immune system was particularly low, explaining his misdiagnosis, and nearly the entire top of his right forearm had turned _black_ from a minor fall during a tour.

We worried. Of course, we worried, but Shinya assured us he knew how to regulate it himself, that it had not shown signs of progression in years, and he just needed some TLC to get his body back on track. Sure enough, a few weeks later, the bruise was faded and color had come back to his face. But that had been from a man of twenty, and now he was almost thirty-two, and I was scared, the words “chronic” and “progressive” sinking into my heart. I also knew that the disease caused him pain, pain that he masked well, for the most part, but I was sure I noticed him wince when he moved, perhaps from a stiffness in his joints, or particularly sore muscles, maybe.

I pushed it forcefully from my mind, Shinya would be fine. I was imagining things! And even if I wasn’t I just… didn’t think about it, because I couldn’t bare to think about Shinya being in pain, and Shinya would never admit to being in it, anyway.

He raised a dark eyebrow at me, nudging my leg with his foot. I cocked my head at him and gave him a sad smile. The companionable look in his eyes disappeared for a brief second as he glared at me, understanding that I had seen, knowing that I worried endlessly, and he touched the place where the bruise was and I knew now that it did surely hurt him, the side of his mouth twitched when he rubbed at the spot, the shortest grunt breathed out through his nose. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Just stressed is all.”

I frowned at him, wishing there was something I could do. “Shinya--”

“I’m not going to _die_ , Daisuke… I mean, I will, eventually, but not in the immediate future, discounting the possibility of freak accident and murder. I _told_ all of you, this is not HIV, it’s not AIDS, it isn’t aggressive like that. My body just has a hard time defending itself and I bruise easily--”

“And hurt. You’re sore all over, I can tell by the way you’re moving.”

He glared at me and I watched indignant tears well in his eyes, but he closed them and took a calming breath, opening them once more with a little less fire behind his gaze. “I’m fine, Daisuke. Thank you for your concern, but it isn’t needed.” He huffed through his nose a little. “I promise.”

“I just don’t understand why you wont admit it when you’re hurting! You don’t have to be strong all the time!”

His nostrils flared and he all but sneered at me, keeping his voice low, “I _hurt_ all the time, Die. So I _do_ have to be strong, and I _don’t_ admit it because I’ve learned to ignore it. I am _always_ in pain, and I’d like it if you’d just _drop this_ and stop treating me like I can’t take care of myself.” I watched tears fall from his eyes, roll down his porcelain smooth cheeks and he ducked his head, wiping angrily at them with the back of his hand. “ _shit_ ” was all I heard from his quiet voice and I opened my mouth to apologize, but his hand had shot to mine and was squeezing it like a vice. “No… no. I haven’t seen this side of you in so long. I’m embarrassed, yes, I don’t like remembering that I’m living with this, it makes me feel like damaged goods, but I haven’t heard you care so much, I haven’t seen you be _Die_ in… years, maybe. So it’s OK.” He spoke into his lap, he couldn’t look at me, but I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb and he finally let go.

“Your hands are shaking,” I observed and he shrugged, looking up and recomposing himself.

“I told you, I’m starving, my sugars are low.” And I believed this, whether it was true or not, because like him, I didn’t want to remember that he was in pain.

We ordered food, both of us looking ravenous when heaping plates of sesame tofu and plump, white grains of rice and stir-fried vegetables were put in front of us. We ate in silence for a while to sate our hunger, and then we began to talk again, about the upcoming tour, about how my group was going, about Miyu being a very old dog now and having to stay in Osaka while he was in Tokyo because she just didn’t adjust well anymore to switching places. It was all pretty bland, boring, and casual chit-chat, but it was us talking about our lives, and I felt shining, prideful joy at the fact that I had again become a part of his.


	5. Herald to the Progressive Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kyo's words, 1/2.

The sun had finally come up, its sharp golden rays glinting off the glass and steel and white snow of Tokyo outside the floor-to-ceiling window of my sitting room, and I was ready to go lie back down in bed. I wasn’t tired, but it was cold, especially being nude, and I wanted to be back in the bed with my lover. Kaoru was still asleep, never very easy to wake, but I was careful to put my weight back on the mattress, shifting to lay curled around his side. We usually always fell asleep tangled together, but inevitably, we moved apart as we slept, both very wide sleepers, I guess you could say. Currently, he had his arms crossed under a pillow which he laid his head upon, face turned away from me, his dark hair loose. He was on his stomach, white t-shirt and a long pair of plaid pajama pants clothing him, his legs thrown apart like he was trying to play king of the castle with my bed.

Excuse me. I’m still used to the way things were for so long. _Our_ bed. _Our_ apartment. Believe me, I’m not complaining. I liked it that way.

I propped myself up on my elbow, head in my hand, and reached to stroke his back, feeling his warm skin through the soft cotton of his t-shirt. I had been in love with Niikura Kaoru since… probably since the day we met, I guess, but I didn’t know just how much I loved him until I finally, after he and Die had fallen apart, worked up the gall to kiss him, and could truly put that love to use. He had seemed a little apprehensive at first, relegating me to only a lover for a while, but as all things go, it became what it would and he fell just as hard for me as I had for him, all those years ago.

What I mean to say, I suppose, is that Kaoru is my everything anymore. Well, Kaoru and music. The convenient nature of these two being linked is just a gift from the universe.

I leaned down and kissed his shoulder through his t-shirt and the erection that just _looking_ at him was keen to rise in me touched his leg. As if a gunshot had gone off, Kaoru took a sudden deep breath, rolling slightly, putting more of his heat, felt through the fabric of his pants, against my length. He moaned incoherently for a little bit, rolling onto his back, rubbing at his eyes, his face a little sleep-swollen, but still beautiful. He was always achingly beautiful. Finally, his deep, deep brown eyes opened and he smiled at me, yawning. “Mm… hey, baby,” he croaked and I chuckled a little, leaning down to kiss him. He gave a little moan into my mouth and rubbed my arm, looking at me funny when I pulled away. “It’s really early.” I just nodded, shrugging it off and he was about to ask questions when he felt my dick on his leg and I watched him bite the inside of his lip, then smirk.

We tussled on the bed for a while, kissing and biting, my hand just suddenly holding the lube and coating three fingers in it, working them inside him and massaging them around, making him pant lustfully into my neck, where he was spotting the skin with dark bruises. He had been a little hesitant at first to be rough with me, scratching me, hitting me, biting me, but I could take the pain, liked it, and he had learned to love to deal it out. I never wonder if this is all our relationship is. I never have to, and no, I don’t complain we don’t “make love” more often, because for me and Kaoru, this _is_ making love. We turn into sexual creatures in each other’s hands, both simply _knowing_ how best to drive the other wild and I hardly knew we’d gotten to that point yet when he straddled himself over my hips, his smooth, pale back to me, and sank down over my dick.

I moaned. Not only was the molten heat of him unbearably good, but the view from where I was, propped up against the headboard and watching him lower himself down over my cock, was amazing. He leaned forward, braced both hands on my thighs, and started to rock, slow at first to get himself used to being so filled up, and then faster, harsher, impaling himself onto me and grunting wildly at the pleasure of it. I grabbed a handful of his hair, tugged his head back, trailing my fingers down his back gently to tease him. I found that light touches drove him just as crazy as a good, hard fuck.

It took a lot for me not to cum two minutes in, but I endured, if only for the sake of watching him some more. He turned to look at me over his shoulder, rolling his hips slow for a while to catch his breath, and smiled. I grabbed him around his chest and pulled him into a kiss and the motion of rocking him back in such a way made him settle all his weight over me, driving my dick as deep into him as it was ever going to get and he shoved his tongue into my mouth with a strangled whine. I shifted, pulling him back to lay against my chest, and planted my feet into the mattress, thrusting up into him to see if I could warrant more reactions like that out of him, and I must have stabbed him right in the prostate, because he screamed my name, his arms coming up to wrap around my neck awkwardly behind himself. I kept thrusting and he kept screaming and we were both lucky the neighbors didn’t call the cops because I’m sure what was actually his orgasm sounded like murder.

Despite feeling him clench around me, I was not done, flipped him over, still panting for breath and surely still clutched in the hold of his release, and I shoved back into him, pulling out almost completely, slamming into him again. He just moaned unintelligibly, resting on his elbows, ass in the air, and let me fuck him, and when I came, I made sure to pull out and do so all over his back. He was already covered in his own cum, he might as well be covered in mine.

He collapsed onto the bed, chuckling to feel me spill myself all over his creamy skin, and I managed to actually stand, staggering to the shower and turning the water on. Kaoru laid on his stomach, groaning at me. “I don’t _wanna_ get up,” he complained, but grinned at me as I tugged him onto his feet and smacked his ass, directing him towards the bathroom.

“I’m washing these sheets. Love you though I do, it wigs me out to think of sleeping in your sperm.” Kaoru’s bell-ring laugh bounced off the tiled walls of the bathroom. I stripped the bed and stuffed the sheets and comforter into the washer, pouring in some detergent and turning the contraption on, going back into the bathroom and stepping into the shower with him. “Just get a rinse, I’m going for a run. If you wanna come with, you’re going to have to take a shower again, anyway.” He nodded, moving to let me rinse off under the spray and we stepped out of the shower, drying each other off. My morning jog was another part of my life I had come to share with Kaoru. In the time between he and Die crumbling and Kaoru and I beginning our relationship, my beautiful guitarist had… well, he had kind of let himself go. Out of shape, I guess you could say, in contrast to the light tone he had once maintained, the sharp hips, the chiseled face. When we began dating, he just jumped into my fitness routine with me, almost always accompanying me on my five kilometer run and occasionally going down to the fitness room in my building once or twice a week, too.

We both layered up, wife beaters under t-shirts under thick sweatshirts, digging out warm sweatpants and tugging on tennis shoes. We grabbed our iPods (as it was fruitless to try and talk while we were jogging) and hit the door, taking our usual route around the far side of our neighborhood, down through a small park, sparkling white with a fresh blanket of snow. I had a new playlist every few weeks or so for this, mixing up what I was finding exciting at the moment, what would pump me up and take my mind elsewhere while I trekked around my part of this enormous city. Today it was IO Echo and Imogen Heap, smattered with a few earlier things from Pierrot and SADS that I liked, and the everpresent-since-I-heard-it-two-year-ago “Endless Summer of the Damned“ from Bauhaus. It was beautiful out and just starting to become bustling, the old timers that sat outside the little shops bordering the park waving to me, recognizing me by now, not as the rock star, but just as the kid that lived up by the flower shop a few blocks down and always took lilies to the temple.

I could tell from the what he thought were subtle hand gestures and purse of his mouth that Kaoru was listening to rap, something that amused me to no end. He, Die, and Toshiya had an affinity for American hip-hop, particularly of the white, more hardcore-laced variety, and their interpretation of the culture surrounding the music, not that I was an expert or anything, was surely skewed, but they liked it.

By the time we got back to the apartment, we were both out of our sweatshirts and damp with sweat despite the cold, huffing up the stairs to the third floor and heading immediately to the bathroom for a long, shared shower.

The rest of the day passed in a pleasantly uneventful fashion. I had learned to love this, the domestic side of life, especially now that I shared that domestication with Kaoru. Who I was on stage, what I did, what I created, was not who I was. It was part of me, certainly, but off stage I was really pretty boring. I liked doing the dishes, I liked surfing the web, I liked sitting at home in pj’s with my boyfriend, watching bad movies and eating a bag of chips. Ya know, the simple things that made my life come down into a more tolerable pace after the sonic-boom speed of our work. After all, our career had been traveling at Mach2, it seemed, since the very beginning, so for the past week, Kaoru and I had been enjoying our down time in between writing and our first short tour in nearly a year. Just a quiet night at the house together, something that had become one of my favorite things in the world.

We were starting to wind down, considering going to rent a movie and get some take-out. Kaoru decided he wanted to try his hand at cooking tonight and I couldn’t argue, what he could actually throw together was always good, so we head down the street to get something mindless, low budget and ultra violent. We were on our way back up the stairs (the elevator was chronically dysfunctional) when Kaoru pulled his cell out of his pocket. “Hey Totchi,” he chirped, having noted the caller ID. There was a short, confused conversation on his side of the line and when we got up on our landing, there was the bassist with two pizza boxes balanced in the palm of one hand and a black and gold bag indicative of a liquor store hung off the long fingers of the other.

They both closed their phones and Kaoru and I had the same inquisitive face. Toshiya shrugged. “Hey guys…” Toshiya sighed. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier, I just… I need a night out of the apartment, I can’t really do this around Die,” he gestured with the bag, obviously containing more than one bottle, “and--”

I touched his shoulder, taking the pizza boxes away. I could tell something was wrong. “What’s up with you, kid?”

Toshiya made an exasperated gesture, throwing his head back, obviously emotional and still in the “I’m angry about this” stage. “Evan dumped me.” There was the obvious state of “Oooh” from Kaoru and I and Kaoru opened the door, ushering the younger man in. Toshiya set the bag down on the kitchen counter, sagging into a bar stool. “He called today, upset… gave me some bullshit line about not being able to handle this. Something about this was too serious for us to not be living together, to always be so far apart.” Tears had welled up and he was biting his lip, hard. “I just… I need to get trashed. I’m sorry for dumping it on you guys, but I brought pizza for incentive.” He tried to smile but his face just didn’t want to make the expression and Kaoru wrapped his arms around him.

“It’s fine, kid… I’m so sorry.” They stood holding each other for a while, Toshiya shaking slightly, crying into the crook of Kaoru’s throat, and I rubbed his back. Kaoru pulled away, smoothing Toshiya’s hair, which he had started to grow back out after the whole “limp Mohawk” deal. “We got a bad movie, you know you love those.” Toshiya nodded, croaking a thank you, and Kaoru got down plates for the pizza and glasses, mixing us each drinks, strong rum and coke, and we meandered into the TV room. From that moment on, no one mentioned Evan, or boyfriends (as much as could be avoided, considering Kaoru and I could easily label each other as such) and by the end of two movies (we had thrown in a second horrible action flick from Kaoru‘s collection), the bottle of liquor was gone and we’d started in on the wine. Kaoru switched out DVDs, putting on something with a little humor and when we were all beyond drunk, Toshiya had cried himself out and seemed to feel slightly better.

We turned off the TV a little after one in the morning and stumbled into the bedroom, Toshiya borrowing some of Kaoru’s track pants and taking off his shirt, all of us curling together in my bed. It was big enough for the three of us, especially considering Kaoru and I were tucked close together, no bigger, really, than one person on our side of the bed, and Toshiya, drunk and trying to recover from heartache, curled against Kaoru’s back, his hand laced with mine, and we all fell asleep.

In the morning, Toshiya seemed back to himself, though I knew him well enough to see that he was still down, making us all scrambled eggs in the kitchen. We ate together quietly and as he was getting all his things back together, mentally gearing himself up to move on and more immediately, go back to his apartment, I grabbed his arm, looking at him seriously. “Totchi, be careful, OK? Just…” I sighed, choosing my words carefully. “Don’t block this out. Don’t bottle it up, alright? I mean, I don‘t get how you can act so casual right now.” That’s how it had all started in the beginning, anyway, the year or so he had started taking sleeping pills, then anti-depressants, then mixing them, and that with booze, and we were all afraid for one blood-curdling second that we had lost him to his own darkness.

He nodded, grinning, pushing on a pair of sunglasses, about ready to head out the door. “I’m from Nagano, bitch, this how we roll.” He gave us both a hug, ensuring he would be fine, and left. Kaoru closed the door and leaned against it with a sigh. I lifted a brow at him, the morning paper spread out on the table before me. I could tell he didn’t know I was watching. Kaoru had a curious way about him when he thought no one could see. His face slackened, then rearranged itself into a pursed, pouting-lipped expression of worry, his eyes darkened and he was forever running his hands through his dark hair, completely natural now, black and slick and past his shoulders. It was funny how all of us had gone to such far extremes of denying our nature, a fairly typical thing for a culture that was saturated with such a sense of sameness, and now, as we got older, could no longer deny our adulthood, we were coming back into ourselves, letting our hair stay more natural, dressing more casually, expressing ourselves as more masculine. Shinya was the only one of us who persisted in keeping his hair dyed blonde, even I had finally change it to a dark brown and was growing it out to my natural black. I suppose I could imagine Kaoru had it the worst, being a young Japanese man, wanting to stand out from a sea of other young Japanese men that looked so much like him; his features were an exaggerated mask of our people, a lovely visage of exemplary structure, but in his superfluously demonstrative characteristics, he was superbly and uniquely beautiful, and I loved to see his natural, earthen-toned skin no longer covered in make-up, no longer hidden behind something he was trying to be.

He moved away from the door and went to sit on the couch, running his fingers over the patterns of his tattoos absently, a habit I don’t think he consciously noted, and when he had worked his way down to the letters over his knuckles, I could take it no longer. A man like Kaoru could not be allowed to sit and think, not on matters such as this, not on anything other than music, for surely he would become lost in his own thoughts and drown there. My paper rustled itself flat down onto the table’s surface, abandoned, and I settled myself at his side on the wide leather couch, tucking my legs up underneath me and rubbing his thigh, my other hand brushing his sharp jaw with its knuckles. “Ne, Kaoru-chan,” I rarely called him this, but did not deter myself entirely from its use, “you’re worrying too much. He’ll be fine. He’s a big boy. Hurt, but still an adult, and he knows how to take care of himself.”

Kaoru sniffed thoughtfully, gave half a shrug, lulled by my petting. “I know that. Jesus, of course I know that. I just feel bad for the kid… I know how he feels. Mutual or not, it was still hard when me and Die disintegrated like we did. I can’t imagine how such a sudden break up must sting.” I kept myself from acknowledging the jealous pang I felt whenever Die was mentioned in context to their past relationship. I nodded my concurrence to Kaoru’s statement, having been dumped plenty of times, myself. Almost all of them had told me something along the same lines; I was great, talented, a terrific lay, and an interesting person to be around, but they just… couldn’t handle me. Almost all of them had put it that way, that I was intangibly difficult, and it made me wonder if Kaoru would one day decide that he could also not grasp me. But, he had made it this long, and I was surprised to find he could hold me quite well.

I waved my hand in front of his face, seeing him start to drift off again and he blinked, looking at me with a tiny smile, leaning to kiss me. I cupped his jaw and smiled against his lips, hooking both elbows at the back of his head, pulling his chest flush against mine. He purred, his sure fingers rubbing down my bare sides and my skin shuddered awake, ready for his touch, hungry for it. I starved my aching skin, though, for just a while, wanting to feed a different hunger that was making itself quite pronounced at the time.

Kaoru didn’t even seem surprised anymore when I dropped to my knees, between his, and pushed up his shirt, bathing the skin of his torso with my tongue while my hands rubbed him through the pair of jeans he had pulled on after rolling out of bed that morning. He let out a pretty gasp and when I canted my eyes up to him, his were rolled back, half closed, his lip taken savagely between his teeth and I smiled, always proud of myself to make him want me so much, to give him such pleasure, so easily. When he was hard (a quick procedure, indeed) I opened his jeans, pulling them down his hips a little so that his balls weren’t trapped somewhere at the juncture of zipper and seam, pulling him out of them and his boxers and kissing the vein delicately. It might seem a strange thing to say, but Kaoru had such a _pretty_ dick. It fit, I guess, with the rest of him. I was reveling in the beauty of the sight, my lover aroused, for me, under my hands, wanting me to please him, but he was far too impatient and pressed my face at it, his fingers snarled in my dark hair (it was so strange to see it fall it into my face and the blurry strands that obstructed my vision were not the accustomed gold) and I was pressed flush to the source of my pride and admiration, thick with the smell of him.

For anyone who has never been with a man, this may be incomprehensible; there is something about a man’s smell, even the smell of his skin, of his cock, that you come to know when you have made said man your lover for a time and when you have had this scent so intimately ingrained in yourself that there is little you can’t imagine doing, or having already done, with him, the scent alone brings you sensual oceans of ecstasy. That is where I was swimming just then, smelling him, his skin, his want, but as I said, he is hasty in his needs, and pressed more immediately for me to do something a bit more stimulating.

I obliged. It is hard for me to not acquiesce to Kaoru, stubborn as I am, especially in such matters. Why wouldn’t I want his cock in my mouth? Do bears shit in the woods? I parted my lips ever-so slightly and flickered my tongue across the head, down into the slit just barely and a desperate “nnh” crossed his lips, making me give the whole crown access into the wet heat of my mouth, rolling my tongue against the underside, and sucked. (You will have only to forgive me for waxing poetic, but it is difficult to avoid such cliché niceties when doing such things for Kaoru, when it is me pleasing him, solely, sacrificing my own desire, as it were, to show him exclusive affection and pleasure. My mind simply goes into that place and I want nothing more than to drive this man crazy in any way I can and every way he will never ask me not to.) I pull back just long enough to spit into my palm, relieve a bit of the friction, so that while I am lavishing attention to his sensitive head, I can grip and pump and twist at the base and shaft, which always makes his ankles flex up and his hips cant out, pressing more of him into my mouth, threatening to knock at the back of my throat. I’m not particularly good at deep throating, I’ve learned to compensate around it, but for Kaoru I try, if only because I know that the visual of seeing most of his cock shoved past my lips makes him that much closer to cumming.

I was beginning to really enjoy the task, feeding off his mewls and moans and pleads for more of a certain caress, and of course, I couldn’t get enough of hearing him pant my name, but Kaoru wanted something more, so I gave it to him. I was used to such sexual cancellation of plans by now so I just went along with it and helped him when he pushed me back, tugged me onto the couch, started to undress me, and then himself, and pulled my ass to the edge of the cushion, he on his knees on the plush carpet between my legs, which I spread willingly for him. He looked around, lost, for a moment, that wild, half-crazed look in his dark, river-silt eyes and he shot off into the bedroom for a moment and returned with the bottle of lubricant, a sloppy, satisfied grin on his face as he settled back between my legs and started to stretch me. We don’t do this often. I require ample preparation each time, and the languid care he takes with the operation always makes my heart swell (that’s got to be sick, right?). I’m so glad he reads me well, because I just can’t take it, cannot stand feeling only his fingers in me anymore, but just as I am turning from anxious to angry, he smears some lube onto himself and, capturing my lips first in a bruising kiss, enters me.

I was surprised to hear my own voice when the cry echoed back a strangled “oh, _God_ ” and Kaoru slid all the way in, hunched over me, his hands at the back of my knees, pushing them apart. I panted, knowing that there were two reasons this was a rare treat for us: a) Kaoru is simply geared to be what they call “uke”, it’s in his nature, seeing as in every other aspect of his life, he is in impeccable control and must relieve it sometimes, and b) I am too overwhelmed with the sensations of him fucking me to do it more often than we do. Already I felt like my whole body was short-circuiting and I was thinking crazy things like “shit, he feels good inside me” and “I love your cock, baby” but all that came out of my mouth was one-word phrases and perhaps disyllabic proclamations of his expertise as he began to thrust. He had grabbed the back of my left ankle by then, my right leg down, though he had his hand braced against the inside of the knee and had it pushed out at arm’s length. It felt so good to have him take me, all I could do was watch and shout and let him have his way with me, for once submitting to the fact that I was of a smaller stature and more slender and he _was_ quite strong, could leave bruises on me without trying, but I liked that. Loved to feel sore days after, to find marks he had left and know that I belonged to him and had something to show for it.

I was loud, I knew, but we didn’t care and he fucked me senseless for what felt like hours. _bang bang bang bang bang bang!_ Quick, vicious snaps of his hips and more silly things, much less whole in their structure this time, were floating into my head, things like “claimed” and “filled” and, something that makes me laugh when I think back on it now, “obliterated“. I was high with arousal. He could do whatever he wanted to me. He bared his teeth and moaned a little mournfully, throwing his head back as he came and I _felt_ it inside me. I’m not sure if it was the actual sensation or the raw, vulgarly erotic thought of it that sent me over the edge, but either way, I followed him in orgasm and my throat felt raw as we were coming back to ourselves, he pulling out of me slowly, staggering to the laundry room for a towel and bringing it back so we could clean ourselves up a bit.

We stayed, sweaty, on the couch for a while, kissing and touching lazily before Kaoru announced that he felt in dire need of a shower and I let him go off while I went into the kitchen to put the dishes from this morning and last night into the washer. As I turned it on, the whirr of it always a soothing sound, strangely, the buzzer by the door went off and all I could think was “Fuck me, Jesus, who in the hell is that?” because it seemed that people showing up at my door had become a common theme in the past year, and the results were rarely ever good.

I hit the talk button and grunted out an annoyed “yeah?”. I was naked and my ass was still sore from getting fucked, I was not in the mood to know who required my attention at the moment. The voice that responded was not amused by my curtness. “Niimura-san, this is the local police, please let us up.”

Shit. Surely Kaoru and I had not been _that_ loud. There was a code downstairs to get into the rest of the building that all my closest friends knew, and I was surprised the cops didn’t just get the super to let them in, but then I remembered the super was a useless jack-off and buzzed up the police. Immediately, I realized I was nude and ran into the bedroom chanting “shit, shit, shit, shit!”. I pulled a t-shirt out of the drawer and fought my hurried way into it. A caterwauler green thing with a busty anime girl on the front, the wording declaring rather casually “Rape is just surprise sex. Who doesn’t like sex and surprises?” Shinya got extremely pissed at me every time I wore it, but I would not being seeing Shin today. I grabbed the first pair of pants I could find, Kaoru’s jeans that, despite being a little too long, fit me, and went to answer the door just as the party on the other side began to knock.

I opened it and dragged a hand back through my hair, hoping I didn’t look like trouble, or too much of a mess, thankful I always kept my apartment clean, so I didn’t seem suspicious. I’d been to jail a couple times, and it wasn’t my favorite place to be. I got twitchy around cops. “Ah, hai? Can I help you?”

Three officers stood in the hall, looking dour and accusatory, which I knew was just the conditioned mask they all received when they graduated from the academy (bitterly speaks the kid that spent too many nights of his late teens in the drunk tank). The tall one in the middle tried too insincerely to seem concerned and got right to the point. “Niimura-san, we received a call about a disturbance coming from your apartment not long ago. Shouting and what sounded like perhaps a fight. Is everything alright?”

Christ, the guys weren’t going to believe this. I wondered, then, if I would even tell them, I mean “The neighbors called the cops because me and Kaoru fucking sounds like domestic abuse” might be beyond even the closeness of _our_ friendship. I scratched my head, trying to look like I was really thinking, leaning against the door, which was only half-open. I could see the other two officers trying to peak around me into the apartment.

“Ah… no? No. Nothing’s wrong.” I shrugged, dropping my hand back to my side, hoping they either recognized me and would cut me a break because they were fans (or more likely, their kids were fans, they seemed older), or didn’t recognize me because if they did, they’d think I was just another party-hardy rock star and would want to search my place for dead hookers, illicit drugs ( _fuck_ I still had my opium pipe, empty though it was, tucked in the top drawer of my dresser), under-aged sex slaves/groupies, and/or token firearms. They didn’t seem to know who I was, or care, but didn’t really buy my story.

The officer asking questions looked down at a pad of paper he was holding. “But, your neighbors reported loud shouting coming from inside.”

I remained nonchalant, shrugging again. “Oh! I, ah, I stubbed my toe. You know, it smarts, I yelled a little bit.”

“But sir, they said it went on for fifteen minutes or so.”

Fifteen minutes, hell! But I guess he was referring to the loudest section of it. I scratched the back of my head again and I could see his buddies eyeing my tattoos, still a stereotyped symbol of criminality in Japan after a sordid history of marking and then yakuza adoption of the art form. I guess it didn’t help that I had “Damned” written on the side of my neck, but I hoped they didn’t read English. “It, uh, it really hurt.” I know I wasn’t exactly giving them the most convincing story, but I hoped my utter dead-pan and complete lack of emotional response would throw them off enough not to care. I opened the door a little wider to let them see in, assure them nothing illegal or just plain weird was going on, masking the revealing gesture as rearranging my stance, and I sniffed boredly. “Is that all, gentlemen?”

I wanted to spit when I saw Captain Inquisition open his mouth again, but he stayed quiet because Kaoru had come out of the bedroom in just a towel, another being rubbed into his hair. “Baby, who is it?”

Realization clicked between all five of us in the span of a breath and the cops were looking far more embarrassed than my nearly-naked lover did. The one in the middle, the only one that had said a word the whole time, stuttered dumbly, looking at the floor, and backed away from the doorway. “Ah, I’m, ah, I’m so sorry, sir, there must have been a misunderstanding, excuse the interruption.” He bowed several times, bobbing like a feeding hen and the three of them took off down the hallway back towards the elevator. I shut the door and re-did all the locks, looking at Kaoru, who seemed positively mortified. All in all, we shook it off, and couldn’t help but laugh, it made a great story! But I was put off by the fact that those three men, should they make the connection with who I was, knew something about me now that none but those most trusted and close could ever even guess. It bothered me, having such information stolen like that.

I mean, I lie, constantly, in interviews. It isn’t really to be a dick (alright, sometimes it is, and usually the reporter deserves it) but more because the fans and the critics want me to be something more than what I am. They expect me to be this well-thought-out genius, or maybe, that I’m really this normal, sweet guy that just played a part. I suppose both of these have truth to them, but the point is, I lie about myself to the general public because I feel that no one other than those I choose to should know me. If I don’t know you, why should you know me, right?

Here’s a few things that _are_ true. I love what I do, even though I feel that there is so much farther to go, that there is more I can accomplish, more polishing to do be done and what have you. I love my boyfriend, and the rest of our band. I would not trade where I am and what I’m doing with my life right now with anything else in the world, and believe me when I say I‘ve had some offers.

A few days later, just four now until our tour, I was sitting in the office, early afternoon. Kaoru was pretending to watch TV, and I knew that his mind was racing with concepts for the new album, tones to paint the songs we had written with, as for now, they were like frameworks. Something solid we knew could withstand the proper adjustments and whose form we were thusly satisfied with. His death-colored eyes had been distant all morning and so I let him stew, despite the fact I wanted to be held, wanted to curl up with him on the couch and kiss him and maybe go walking in the snow, but what would come out of him when he returned from that otherworld of creation he retreated to was more beautiful than I could imagine, inspired me to create my own elaborate tapestries (a two-way process with us that had been made even stronger with our relationship) and I would not be selfish and bring him out of this prematurely.

The phone call came sometime before I had intended to buckle down on polishing out lyrics, and when I was done with the conversation and had hung up, my hand, putting the mobile back on my desk, was shaking. My breath felt heavy, my head ached, my skin seemed too tight and I raged.

The papers on my desk were the first to go; birthday cards fell to their hollow, cardboard deaths on the floor, my pages of lyrics, my letters I wrote and never sent, a music magazine with an interview with Die that I had been meaning to read, all flying off the polished wood surface in that slicing sound of paper through air. My mug full of pens was next, leaving a whole in the sheetrock of the wall, and when it came back down and hit the metal edge of the chair set on the other side of my desk, the mug’s ceramic could not withstand any longer, like my temper, and broke, the hollow, dry sound of plastic hitting the floor following the sluice of paper-through-air. I yelled, a sound that tore my throat, and that felt good, my hands grabbing at the front of my shirt because I couldn’t get at the thing that ached inside of me. The stitching at the neck stretched, the thread broke, popping like quiet fire crackers. I slammed my palm down against the last thing on my desk (my laptop was lucky, surely a prophet and having foreseen this destructive binge, and sat, safe, on mine and Kaoru’s bed) which was my phone. I grabbed it and threw it into the hall and the screen separated from the rest of it, little metal pieces skittering across the floor, down the hall, and as I was tearing books off the shelf, shredding some, throwing the rest of them around like too-big confetti, I heard Kaoru’s bare feet padding from across the apartment, coming to see what was wrong, coming to save me, because he knew I could take this too far.

He jumped out of the way when I picked up my comfortable leather office chair and threw it into the bookcase and nearly tripped over the wheeled legs to get to me, grabbing me by the wrists, and I was still shouting, no words, just anger and pain and fear and his eyes that I loved so much, that told me he loved _me_ so much, were hurting to see me like this. “Tooru!” he shouted for maybe the fourth of fifth time, but I only now actually heard him, my left ear dead anyway, the right distracted by my tangent, still hearing the music of destruction I had just been playing all around the room. He squeezed my wrists, hard, and I flinched. He was hurting me, but it brought me back. I blinked up at him, my fingers twitching, balling into fists, my teeth bared, but I was no threat to him. I liked to think that against all else, I would at least have reigned myself in before turning my rage on Kaoru, and even so, there was fear in his eyes. I sagged, my knees weak. Kaoru looked like he might cry, frightened by this side of me, this side he knew, this side he understood created the verbiage and dictated the soul to the music he wrote, but it scared him all the same and he asked me what was wrong.

I pressed into him, my wrists still in his hands, and found that I was panting for breath, had to catch it before I told him “Mama called,” and that was all he needed to know to understand, to wrap his arms around me, to pull me out of the office and close the door and tug me to our bed, where we laid down together and he let me shake and scream into his chest until I fell asleep.

He asked no more questions because he loved me and he knew better.


	6. In Accordance With the High Regime

I mentioned earlier that I lie in interviews, that there are some things I simply do not tell the truth about to the public, or give the truth on occasion and a handful of other answers as well, so that it can never really be said what’s right and what isn’t. My mother is something I _never_ speak of, and never will. I wish it was something I didn’t have to deal with in my private life, either.

When Mama called yesterday, I kept thinking to myself, through the whole conversation, how can talking to my mother feel like speaking to a child? I didn’t recognize the number, so I answered, curious, and there was her tiny, sweet voice. “Tooru-chan! Oh, darling, it’s been so long!” The ambiguous feelings of love for her and hate that I still had to deal with all this boiled up in my chest and all I could say was “H-hai, Mama… how are you?”

She cooed and I could see her face, imagined her smiling. “I was cleaning today, Tooru, and I found a slip of paper with your phone number. I had forgotten all about it! How are you, darling?” In the background, I could hear bells and chanting, but it could have just as easily been a television or stereo as it might have been actual monks out in the courtyard behind the house, tucked against the side of one of Kyoto’s many temples, the place where I had grown up. I grabbed a pen from my cup of writing utensils and started disassembling it nervously as we spoke, unscrewing the pieces and laying them all out on the desk.

“I’m fine, I suppose. Been working a lot lately. You?” She had been taking medication again for the past few years, but there were some things that simply couldn’t be helped. Her paranoia had all but disappeared, but her flightiness and absolute lack of any form of tact was still present. Schizophrenia was a fickle thing.

She sighed. “No problems, no problems. It’s been the same old thing, you know? It’s so pretty, though, I like the snow here. When will you be home? Will you come see me?” I closed my eyes and realized it had been two years since I had seen my mother last and no, I didn’t want to break that streak, but I told her yes, because I hate to hear her sound disappointed.

“Why don’t I come down tomorrow, Mama? I don’t have many days to spare, I should see you now, before we lose too much time.” Or before she slipped into one of her phases and forgot we had ever talked, or that she even had a son, or forgot I was a man now and not still eighteen, nineteen, working any job I could up in Tokyo because I was young and stupid and simply could not handle being around her anymore. So far she sounded pretty lucid, and happy to hear from me, but this is how it was with my mother; as much as I hated seeing her, as much as it hurt to go down and be reminded of where I had come from, how we had lived, she and I both, the disgrace of the Nishimuras (Mama tells me we were really from Chiba, but I don’t know the rest of my family, and she changed our name to Niimura so we might spare them the dishonor), the mentally ill young daughter, a mother at only fifteen, and me, her bastard child.

She squawked happily. “Oh, that would be wonderful! I just went to the grocer, too, we could make a big lunch and walk around the gardens, ne?” Of course she expected me to agree, and I couldn’t do much else. We agreed on the date and she asked me to please be careful driving down and to call when I had almost arrived. I hung up the phone and, well, you know what happened next.

So here are me and Kaoru, in the car, almost into Kyoto and it’s snowing lightly and I am miserable. Dreading this. Hating that I must dread seeing my own mother. Kaoru insisted he take me, make sure nothing too harsh happened, and that I could actually arrive and return safely, seeing as most of my emotions should come with a “Do not operate heavy machinery” warning. And before you ask, no, Mama does not know about Kaoru and me. She knows Kaoru, sure, or at least, she has met him, whether or not she remembers him is yet to be seen, but I have spared her the knowledge of my sexual persuasion, much less putting my actual lover in her face. Her mental state is fragile enough without such knowledge for a very conservative woman.

When we have finally entered the city, I call Mama, as she requested, and she seems lucid, still, excitedly informing me that she has already been cooking for an hour or so and can’t wait to see me. I am surprised to find that I am anxious to see her as well, but that anxiety is as ambiguous as my love for her. Kaoru reached over and held my hand the closer we got, his strength oozing into me. It was the main characteristic (aside from his distinct ability to get us all together and on the same page) that had easily assigned him from the start as being our band leader. I squeezed back, lacing my fingers with his, letting the familiar sensation calm me. I warned you, I’m painfully normal; the simple gesture of holding my boyfriend’s hand relaxes me.

I had to give Kaoru directions, finding that I wasn’t quite sure how to get to the house anymore, but the temple was easy enough to find and he pulled around to the back, down the narrow driveway and up to the tiny little house where I had first been introduced to the world. I had been born in that house, I had been raised there, had masturbated for the first time in my little bedroom there, had listened to my first rock bands there, had found what I could only pin loosely as God, had discovered the first little pieces of myself, had grown embittered and weary and left, and there the house still stood. Kaoru cut the engine and leaned over to catch the side of my mouth in a kiss, the last bit of affection we could show for the next several hours and asked me if I was going to be alright. I smiled at him, or tried, and rubbed his arm. “Yeah, I’ll be OK.”

We got out of the car, me with my bag slung over my shoulder, and Mama was coming down the steps, a flowered pink apron tied around her slim, tiny body and she shuffled barefoot through the snow to us, throwing her arms around me. My small stature, hate it often, though I do, comes from my mother, without any doubt. I am (despite a common misconception among many Westerners) quite short for a Japanese man, rarely ever meet other men that I see eye to eye with, much less can look down on, but Mama hardly comes up to my nose, tiny and, as I realized as I hugged her, frail. She held onto me for what seemed like a long time, rocking me back and forth, her small, gentle hands rubbing at my back through my jacket, and I couldn’t hear what she was saying because she was speaking into my shoulder, but I could tell by her inflection she was cooing soft little endearments and Kaoru stood at a good distance at my back, chuckling. I met Kaoru after his mother had passed away, we didn’t know of what, though he had implied she had always been sickly, and I knew that, despite knowing that we all had rather sordid backgrounds with our families, he liked seeing us with our parents, especially when they showed us affection and not, like Die’s family often did, thinly veiled disdain.

She finally pulled away and looked up at me and I saw that she had gotten a little older (of course she had gotten older, time had passed, that’s how things happen) and a little thinner, but she was smiling up at me and I saw my nose, my eyes, my cheekbones. I could not help but smile back. She didn’t say anything, just stared up at me and finally huffed out a satisfied little sigh, dropping her arms back to her sides and turning her attentions to Kaoru. “You brought a friend!” She took a few steps towards him and he smiled, bowing, taking her arm and gesturing her back towards the house.

“Niimura-san, it’s cold out! You’ve got no shoes! Come on, let’s go in the house, ne?” He laughed and she waved a hand at him, giggling with him. Perhaps it was part of her mental state, but Mama was an insufferable flirt. She let Kaoru lead her inside and we both slipped off our shoes. Mama turned and grabbed Kaoru by the biceps like she had taken me and looked up into his face, inspecting him.

“Mm… I must be getting old. I know I’ve met you, it’s hard to forget such a face, but I can’t remember your name!” She put a slender, dry little finger to her lip and tapped it there, making an exaggerated expression of contemplation. “Some delicate name…” Kaoru briefly glowered at this, but put his face back together into something polite as she pondered. “Kakura? Koru?”

“Close, Niimura-san. Kaoru desu. We’ve only met once before, and several years ago. I play guitar with Kyo.” He smiled at her and she flapped her hands, laughing.

“Of course, of course! Come in! Sit down! I’ve already got some tea made.” We followed her into the dining room and Kaoru settled himself on the floor, tucking his feet under him and thanking my mother quietly in his deep, smooth voice as she put a warm cup of tea into his hands. I sat across from him and took a cup when Mama brought the tray and sat down with us. She turned to me, her short, dark hair tucked behind her ears, and I noticed she was wearing the simple amethyst drop earrings I had given her… let’s see… I was seventeen… almost twenty years ago, now. She reached her hand out and stroked my arm, her fingers tracing the lines of my tattoos. Thankfully, she had always liked them. “How are you, Tooru-chan? Truly?”

I laid my hand over hers and squeezed. “Good. Really. Working a lot, always busy, you know, but I’m doing well.” She grinned and reached up to pat my cheek. “How have you been?”

She shrugged, taking a delicate little sip of her tea. “Nothing changes for me, you know that! It’s all the same, I help take care of the temple and the gardens, I pray every day, I clean the house… I live in the most beautiful city in the world, though, I can’t complain!” Mama and I had always felt blessed to have been cast out into Kyoto. We both adored this city, and I had promised her that when I was finally done with music, I would retire here.

She turned her attention to Kaoru, wanting to be polite. “And how about you? Are you married, any children?”

Kaoru almost spit out his tea, but managed to compose himself and I had to bite my tongue not to laugh. He shook his head, blushing. “N-no, no… no time!” He laughed nervously, gesturing uselessly with his hands. “I work too much, no woman would keep me.” Mentally, I made some smart ass comment that it was good he’d found a man that would, but I kept it to myself. Mama frowned, patting Kaoru’s cheek like she had mine.

“That’s disappointing to hear, you’re so handsome!” Kaoru turned an even darker shade of red, insisting “no, no” and I knew he wasn’t being modest, he had always found it difficult to receive compliments, so I made a point of constantly informing him how beautiful and talented and intelligent and strong he was. Mama was not done embarrassing him, though. “You know, a career is nothing if when you’re done, you find you’ve got not wife and no children, and then what? You die with all your money and have no one to pass it on to!” Kaoru’s blush went away at that, in fact he turned a little pale, and he made a tiny grin as some floundering expression in response to the comment.

Oblivious of how incredibly difficult of a conversationalist she was, Mama turned back to me and we chatted idly about how things at the temple had been going while we finished our tea, Kaoru moving to pour another cup for her, but she waved him off, standing and declaring that she must finish cooking and that we could come sit at the counter and talk if we liked, or sit here and watch the snow. Somewhere off in the distance, another temple was ringing its bells and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, sitting in the moment and taking it for what it was, a habit anymore, before getting up and following her. Kaoru, knowing full-well he couldn’t just sit alone there, came with me and we sat out of the way while my mother finished our lunch, traditional food (which she was an absolute expert at), and she surprised Kaoru by telling him how much she had enjoyed Uroboros and asked if there was any chance he might play something for her later in the day.

He looked at me with his dark eyes and I could tell he was thinking “Your mother listens to our music?!” and I had to laugh. Mama turned around, hands on her hips. “What, you think an old woman can’t listen to hardcore?” She made a quick gesture of horns and Kaoru almost fell off his stool, trying desperately not to laugh at her. She giggled with him, though, turning around and pushing play on the CD player she kept in the kitchen. ‘Mushi’ began, soft. “My son is a musician, I have no choice but to listen to what he performs. And, it took me a while, but I like it.” She smiled demurely, stirring udon, before making a very serious face and shaking her spoon at Kaoru. “But I don’t like those other bands. They’re just too noisy!” She quieted and hummed along for a while, her attentions on her cooking, and without looking up, she asked quietly “Tooru, sing for me?”

I obliged, joining in with my own voice, more soft and smooth coming from my mouth now that it did from the stereo across the room. Kaoru tapped his fingers against the counter in accordance to how he would have placed them against the frets were a guitar in his hand, humming, and there we were, my lover, my mother, and me, singing to one of my own songs in the kitchen of my childhood home, a song that I had written about all the painful things that had happened here, long ago. I felt a certain release, having the retelling of it now be in such a comfortable setting with her. The CD player was on shuffle and “24ko cylinders” started, but I didn’t sing along this time. She turned the volume down even more, almost unheard, and from the temple, chanting began, no words distinct, but the tones are unmistakable, especially for Mama and me, who had lived with the soundtrack of the sacred hymns all our lives here, and we both began to chant, hardly even thinking about what we were doing. She kept cooking and I just sat at the counter, watching her, and under the sound of us and the muffled accompaniment of the temple, I heard Kaoru’s deep voice chanting quietly with us.

Lunch was a painless affair of Mama telling Kaoru jokes and Kaoru and I editing stories from our last tour to make her laugh. I found myself enjoying her company, happy that aside from a strange distance that came in and out of her eyes and a slight nonlinear pattern to her train of thoughts, she seemed to be doing very well. When we had finished eating, Kaoru insisted he help her with the dishes and she was delighted with the offer, and I was mortified, because she washed while Kaoru dried and I sat back and watched as my own mother, none the wiser, hit on my lover. As terrified as I could tell he was, though, as embarrassing as it was for me, I had to laugh, would not save him. She wasn’t so brash as to actually come onto him, though she did touch his arm and put her hand at the small of his back a few times, so I just sat back and enjoyed the comedic gold.

When they were done, Mama put her apron over the handle of the oven and asked me if I wanted to go walking in the park and then to the temple. Kaoru, ever intuitive, feigned a yawn and insisted he was tired, asking if it was alright if he laid down while we went out exploring. Mama cooed over him and led him into the guest room, what had once been my bedroom, and I helped her into her coat before we both pulled on shoes and left the house.

We walked together down the driveway and down the quiet street (this whole block was part of the temple) to the gardens at the bottom of the hill, her hand tucked into the crook of my elbow. I put my fingers over her gloved ones, smiling. “It’s very pretty out,” I noted, walking with her over the small bridge, red sparking the whiteness of the snow all around, of the bridge and the torii ahead. She leaned her head on my shoulder and sighed.

“Very beautiful. Very, very lovely.” She was quiet for most of the walk around the gardens, just looking, humming to herself occasionally, and I let myself just enjoy her company, not dwelling on wondering when and if she might slip out of this lucidity and into a state I knew a little better, a state I was very afraid of, and wearied of quickly. We walked and walked and finally we made it back to the temple, going not to the house, but up the steps to the temple itself, both of us, even in the cold, slipping off our shoes and padding across the wide hall to the main shrine. The heady patina of incense and oils and sandalwood struck me like a slap, but I adored it. These smells had accompanied me through my whole life, turned on a certain part of my mind that spilled calm through every nerve of my body. We walked together up to the shrine and I helped her, forgetting that she really wasn’t so old, to kneel, and she let me because I’m her baby and it makes her happy when I show I still remember that.

I knelt beside her and laced my fingers together, pressing my nose against their entwined peaks, she pulling a worn mala from inside her jacket, and together we prayed until the priests rang the bells indicating the evening zen and Mama and I both relaxed back, watching the priests and monks renew the incense, leave new offerings, simply being, for a few brief moments.

When we returned to the house, it was nice and warm compared to outside and the ill-insulated confines of the large temple, and I found that Kaoru had indeed fallen asleep on my old bed, curled up on the futon in his clothes, looking much younger than he was with his face relaxed in such a way. While Mama was busy making tea, I crawled up, straddling his chest, and kissed him awake. He groaned, obviously having been enjoying his nap, but smiled, running his fingers through my hair. “Have fun?”

I shrugged, kissing him again while I could. “As much fun as you can when you’re anticipating someone you love to at any moment have a psychotic break, yes.” He frowned a little and I brushed his bangs away from his face. “She’s making tea, but I think we’ll be going soon. I don’t want to get back to Tokyo too late.” Kaoru nodded and sat up, stretching with a grand yawn. I winked at him and moved to the door, watching Mama from my hidden vantage point and it was difficult to tell if she was murmuring to herself, as anyone does, putting water in the kettle and pulling down canisters of tea, or if maybe there was someone else in the kitchen with her, as far as her reality dictated. I walked quietly to the kitchen and knocked on the counter to alert her of my presence, Kaoru following behind. “Mama? I think Kaoru and I are going to go soon, we want to get back into Tokyo at a decent hour tonight.”

Mama turned, startled to see us there. “Oh! Oh, of course… did you want tea, or will you be going now?” I shrugged, turning back to Kaoru, who showed about the same amount of indifference. Mama sighed a little mournfully and came to grab me by the arms, looking up into my face. “I suppose you should go on, then, while you’ve still got a little daylight.” She smiled sadly and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing tight, then she let go and did the same to Kaoru. “It was lovely having you here, such a handsome face to cheer an old, lonely woman up. You should come back with Tooru sometime.”

Kaoru blushed and returned the hug awkwardly, nodding at her suggestion. “I’ll certainly try, Niimura-san.” She fawned over us as we got into our coats and shoes at the door, expressing how thankful she was we had come to see her and that she would miss me and to please be safe driving home. At the door (the snow had started falling again, a little harder this time) she cupped my face in her hand and rubbed her thumb against my cheek, saying simply “I love you, my darling” and then she waved and closed the door and Kaoru and I climbed back in the car, he driving again, back to Tokyo, back to our home, the one we shared together.

The next few days was spent blissfully out of my head, rehearsing with our core tech crew for the tour. Lighting would be done in-house since we were doing such small venues, something that would take some getting used to for me, seeing as I liked having a hand in the lighting design of our tours. On the night before our first show Kaoru and I spent the evening packing, idiot-checking (a critical skill when you lived as we did, half the year or more in hotel rooms and across countries--you leave something in a hotel room, kiss it goodbye, you wont ever see it again) trying to fit our lives into a few bags, which, after all this time, wasn’t very hard. In fact, we were all pretty trained by now; what possessions we had that we didn’t take on tour were usually ones that were semi-permanent to our homes; TV‘s, game systems (though we usually had a communal one for dire days stuck in hotels, bored out of our minds in between gigs), furniture, etc… Not that you’d travel with such things anyway, but you get my point. We’ve trained ourselves to not even really _own_ anything that cannot easily be taken on tour. It’s second nature anymore to see something in a store (sometimes even when shopping for clothes) and think “enh, I can’t really take it on tour, anyway” and put it back, because for six-to-nine months out of the year, you wont see it, so why bother.

When we had everything we could and wanted to bring, Kaoru agonized over most of his wardrobe (anything designated as “stage wear”, despite the fact we had more or less eradicated the concepts years ago, had already been packed and put in with the gear), and it was encroaching on midnight. I went to scan my book shelves (mourning the loss of a few favorites I would have to replace, after my literary genocide induced by the phone call from my mother) and grabbed a few I thought I might want to take me out of the reality of how much tour, in all honesty, fucking sucks, and shoved them into my suitcase, finally getting it to close, and, satisfied, carried our bags to sit by the door, then laid down in bed. Kaoru was brushing his teeth, hair pulled back in a ponytail, bangs pushed back by a headband. He had this nightly ritual he thought I hadn’t caught onto yet, but I was smarter than I looked; hair up and out of face, brush teeth, wash face, scrutinize self in mirror, lotion elbows, wash hands, brush hair, scrutinize again, finally turn off the light and get in bed. Every night it was the same, or at least, the nights he wasn’t too drunk to actually make it through the tasks, and those nights had been quite few and far between, in recent months, and I couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at how truly neurotic and ultra-controlled he was. I knew a little about his past, nothing in vast detail, but I knew enough to understand that Kaoru was in a constant battle with himself to feel like he was not still the out of control, depressed, displaced, and judgmentally challenged teen he had been so long ago. It still haunted him, whatever he’d done and been through then, and I might not know the story, but I could see what it had done.

He flipped off the lights in the bedroom, low-wattage track lighting that was never very bright, anyway, but all the same, the room plunged into blackness and I heard and felt him crawl into his side of the bed, smelled his lotion, his face wash, that woodsy skin-smell that was uniquely Kaoru, and he came into shadowy focus a bit as he scoot himself across the mattress and I rolled over against his chest, laying my head over his heart to listen to the central station of all the blood in him rushing around, and he draped his arms around me, taking a big breath which he let out in a long sigh. I nuzzled down against him, letting our bodies fit together like they wanted to, his t-shirt soft and worn under my cheek, his body warm and familiar. I closed my eyes, too excited to be tired, and I knew he was the same, just let myself enjoy the feeling of him, stroking the inside of his arm lightly with my fingers, making him shiver a little, purring when I rubbed my knuckles against the sensitive crook of his elbow. I breathed out a little chuckle, trailing my hand down to take his hand, lifting it up to lace our fingers together. “Mm, I love you, baby.”

“Baby” was something he usually called me, but I adopted it occasionally, liking the way it sounded. There was something deeply affectionate about the term that I couldn’t really settle too deeply into the “cutesy” category to disuse. He pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it and I could feel him smile. “Love you, too.”

I shifted a little higher against his chest and he crooned down to kiss me and hands grasped hair, their twins running down backs or over arms and we kissed and touched and just laid there with each other until we both finally drifted off into sleep, one of those “I don’t even remember doing it!” type of slumbers, and when the alarm went off to wake him the next morning, I was already up, ready for another tour, another day, another morning waking up to the man that made me happier than anyone else on the planet, and please, feel free to challenge me on that.

Unloading from our personal cars into the little trailer on the back of our van (a van… a VAN! Even the tight confines of a tour bus was a luxury compared to the infamous and much loathed van) took about an hour, and finally were on the road. Kaoru and I were in the first row, me in the middle with Shinya on the other side, Die and Toshiya in the back. Shinya promptly fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, the only one of us that could sleep on the day of our first tour gig. The rest of us were a ball of (albeit sleepy) nerves, the energy palpable in the tight space.

The next hour or so was spent bullshitting quietly, playing cards, watching the landscape pass by. If you don’t like road trips, do not inject yourself into anything remotely within this line of work. You will regret it soon and leave it fast. Thankfully, our familiarity with touring at this point had evened out the acquired distaste for it. Shinya woke up about an hour before we arrived and read, occasionally throwing in tags of conversation, and at long last we arrived at the venue. It was strange, pulling up behind a club rather than into the back parking lot of an arena, but it felt good. We had not done anything even remotely like this since the beginning, since we are just young kids in a band, thinking we were the greatest thing Japan had ever seen and hoping we were right. I wont be so arrogant as to say we were eventually right in thinking this, but the way our career took off must be some testament to our early boasting.

Die reached forward and slid open the door, he and Kaoru fighting each other to get out first, stretching their legs, Shinya rolling his eyes and taking his time, following after me and Toshiya. The gear was already there, both our crew and house crew loading our stuff out and down the back hall towards the stage. Kaoru grinned, grabbing a handful of Die’s hair, shaking his head around playfully. “You excited, kid?”

Die rolled his eyes, hiking his bag up on his shoulder. “Hell yeah!” Toshiya was already running full speed towards a slender thing lugging gear, forcing him to put down the case he was carrying to hug the bassist back. Die laughed. “I swear, they should just assign him to do census. He knows _everyone_.” Shinya squinted across the parking lot.

“That’s his cousin, silly. Home town.” Die tugged Shinya’s sleeve in retaliation to the snide remark. Shinya hit him and they proceeded to tussle, Shinya finally overpowering Die (it was unclear if the guitarist had actually given up) and slammed him into the side of the van, finally breaking the play fight, laughing it off. I slung my arm around Shinya’s neck and Kaoru grabbed Die, both of us tugging our respective captives towards the club.

Once inside, we found our own stuff in the green room and called counter space, much smaller than what we were used to in arenas, make-up boxes and bags crowding personal bags and cell phones and packs of cigarettes. We each took an index card with our names on it and slapped it onto the top of the mirrors over our sections so that the crew knew where to drop additional stuff.

Once we were situated, Kaji popped his head in and let us know lunch was out in the main room of the club and we filed out into the bar area, where the tables had been pushed together with KFC ready. It was cheap, it was fattening, but dammit, it was good. We all descended on it like poor college kids on ramen, finding that we were famished. Crew filtered in and out around us (the club doors wouldn’t actually open to the public for another three or four hours), but they would eat when they could. Right now, as we watched, they were assembling the stage, pinning lines, setting up Shinya’s kit, etc, which was an amazing thing, in truth, knowing that within about twelve hours our entire stage set up came into existence and then disappeared again. Granted, our stage plot and set up for this tour was a simplified version of our usual gigs, but it was impressive, nonetheless. I had a keen understanding of what our crew does (bless them), having done their job myself, many years ago.

Fed and happy, we sat around smoking for a while, knowing that until line check was done, we were useless, finally finding our way back to the green room to finalize our pre-show set up while we waited to be called for sound check. Kaoru and Die had their acoustics out, not so much practicing as fucking around, and Toshiya was trying to engage me in a staring contest when Kaji strode down the hall with two techies in tow, distributing in-ears and walking us back to the stage. The joy of digital boards is that you can save settings for a show, so rather than readjust from show to show, our monitor mixes and such were already within where they needed to be, and though we were all particular, changed taste day to day, always requiring some sort of tweaking, we had this down to a science. Shinya was first, adjusting his kit to his liking and kick, snare, hat, and overheads got fed through to each of us, adjusted if needed, then Toshiya, then Die, then Kaoru, and finally me, adjustments made along the way as we compensated for each of us coming in. We had gotten monitor mixing down to about fifteen minutes, at most, and had been doing such for about the past six years, engineer’s competence pending. Kaji was a brilliant man, working in ninja-like ways, and as we were adjusting the full mix with monitors, he was already putting us through the house.

We played about four songs for sound check, systematically choosing them so that each of Die and Kaoru’s guitars were checked (which took much stopping and fiddling with pedals and effects and the rest) and within an hour, we were done, house crew working with our lighting director as we ran the check to do special focuses. It was a good sign; first show in to a tour format we were no longer accustomed to doing, and we were functioning as a well-oiled machine. Surely, I have reiterated this ad nauseum, but seriously; talent and good production design is useless without a good crew. As far as I was concerned, we had the best.

We still had about two and a half hours to show, but the club did not have the same interesting halls and rooms (or hiding places in the back parking lot) as arenas did. We would not have a hotel until we arrived at our next city after the show, and we all knew this was the first downside to this tour; boredom. It was too early to start getting ready. Visual days behind us, we all required _maybe_ an hour to prepare for a show, but Kaoru was already digging through his make-up box, a sturdy thing that had survived many tours, many photo shoots, many accidents off counters, and he was rearranging and cleaning compartments to kill time. I dug through my bag and pulled out a manga, settling into my chair beside him and reading while he organized, one hand on his knee the whole time, rubbing occasionally. The guys disappeared for a while and Kaoru seemed satisfied with his box and I was disappointed to find the manga was boring, so we settled on making out for a while. House crew is almost always good about leaving talent be unless needed, and most of our crew (the ones we had been working with long enough to consider friends) knew about us, had known about Kaoru and Die, so we were free of worry that we would be “found out”, and therefore free to show affection.

I was just short of climbing into his lap when we heard Toshiya’s laugh coming down the hall (God love the boy for being loud) and we pulled apart, humoring the others to a game of Uno until it was time to get ready. Announcements were dropped into us for doors, thirty minutes to show, fifteen, and places. By places, I had already found a quiet corner, emptying myself of who I was as a person and preparing to spill out what was left onto the crowd. Shinya called it tonight “Dir en!” and we all answered “grey!”, hands piled together, and walked to the wings, Kaoru leaning down and kissing me just as the stage went to black, and it was show time.

Performing in the club was the most intense experience I had ever had, short of the first time Kaoru and I had sex. The space was tight, contained all the energy, bounced it back, let it grow. I poured my heart out, screamed, sobbed, literally, throwing myself around more vigorously than I could ever remember doing. Several times, I went over to Kaoru, wrapped my arms around his shoulders and sang into his ear, making sure not to grind against him or kiss him like I wanted to, not wanting a repeat of That Night, as my sexually aggressive antics had triggered the jealousy in Die that had started it.

I stumbled off stage exhausted and bleeding, towel over my head, and panted down the hallway into the green room, collapsing onto the couch, about ready to give out, having seen too many days. Kaoru was the last one in, all smiles as he came to me, bending down and going for just a peck, but I grabbed him, sweaty and bloody and breathless as I was, and sucked his tongue into my mouth, kissing him hungrily. He let me attack him for a few moments, leaning down awkwardly to my level and Die shouted “Geez, get a room!” and my whole body relaxed a little hearing nothing but jest in his voice. Shinya threw the contents of his water bottle out onto us, grinning, and Kaoru started stripping off his sweaty clothes, wiping down with a towel and redressing in a wife beater and sweat pants, something comfortable for the ride to Gifu that he could just get into the hotel room and fall into bed with. Little did he know, I planned to get him back out of those clothes as soon as we were in our room, but I let him be for now, going to the one, rather infectious looking shower in the club and rinsing off before getting into comfortable clothes myself. By the time I was done and back to my things, throwing stuff into bags and my dirty clothes in the communal laundry hamper, all of our instruments that had been backstage and our in-ears were already taken and packed away, and as we were going back to the van, half of our gear was already either in the truck, or loaded and heading that way.

Die, Toshiya, and Shinya were in the front seat this time, leaving me and Kaoru in the back, me tossing my legs across the empty seat and leaning into his chest with his arms around me. It felt so good, but at the same time, I felt a little twinge of guilt, being in such proximity to his ex-lover, my friend, remembering seeing them just like this when the love between them had still been something beautiful. But Die was healing, I could see it. He still loved Kaoru, always would, I’m sure, but the jealousy and hurt that used to paint his chocolate eyes when Kaoru or I showed each other affection was fading, and so was my guilt.

The ride to Gifu wasn’t terrible, gave us just enough time to wind down off the high of performing and gear up to getting some sleep, arriving at our hotel blissfully exhausted and carrying our bags up to our rooms with a round of “Oyasumi” to each other. Toshiya and Die crashed together in a room with two beds, me and Kaoru in a room with one, and Shinya had a room to himself. Kaoru and I shuffled into the room, that hotel smell that was attached to the feeling of both displacement and rest in my mind now hitting me, and Kaoru pulled the comforter off the bed, making as little contact with it as possible, shoving it in a corner. He had expressed to me, right, I was sure, that hotel comforters were the most disgusting things on the planet, a miasma of jizz, blood, vomit, spit, food, urine, the list went on and on… whatever happened in that room and found its way onto the comforter stayed there for up to six months before the comforters were washed. At first I thought he was crazy, but I noticed that there were only sheets on the maid carts when they went around to clean, and so I didn’t bat an eye when he stripped it off the bed.

He dug his toiletries bag out and went to indulge in his nightly ritual and I waited for the bathroom so I could do something similar, but I wasn’t ready for bed. As worn out as my body felt from performing, I was still horny, aching to feel his skin smashed up against mine, hungry to taste him, to smell him, to hear him pant my name and leave my skin under his nails and to darken the bruise I had left on him weeks ago, just under his collar bone; I had bitten him and realized I liked the mark, liked seeing my presence boasted on his pale skin, so I had sucked and nibbled it near daily to keep it visible.

When I had brushed my teeth, pissed, and pulled the top half of my hair up in a rubber band (it was just long enough to pull it up out of my face now, still dark, and I liked it) he was curled up in bed, looking sleepy and watching TV, the room cast a warm glow by the single lamp on at his side table. I was naked, my preferred sleep attire, and pulled back the sheets, groaning at their cool, soft haven as I slipped between them, searching out his warm, smooth skin. He whined a little, a pleased noise to feel me next to him, and he moved to rest against my chest, hugging me. “You were so good tonight. I thought I was going to hate doing small venues, but it was amazing!”

I hummed my concurrence and we fell silent for a while, laid and half watched TV, half lazily pet each other, my nose pressed into his hair. He took a big deep breath, and let out a purr, tucking his body around me and I could tell he was about to go to sleep, so I started pulling a little as I stroked his hair, applying more pressure and little bit of nails as I rubbed his back, sliding down, grabbing his ass, sliding back up, under his shirt this time, tracing circles against the small of his back, up the valley of his spine, where I knew feather touches sent shocks of erotic pleasure through him. He gave a short moan and his hand draped over my forearm squeezed. He licked his lips and the tip of his tongue touched my skin, flashing icy cold when it left and the air rushed in to evaporate the moisture of his saliva. I persisted, kissing his hair, crooning my neck to breathe against his ear and he whined again, this time with a touch of protest. “Mmm, baby, I’m _tired_!” but I knew from the tone he would give in.

TV forgotten, but left on to muffle any noise (we hadn’t yet fucked in a hotel, where it really was rather critical that we keep as quiet as possible), he rolled and rested his full weight over me, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could lean and catch my mouth in a kiss, a slow, tender one, his mouth minty from the toothpaste, his lips fitting expertly with mine. I put my hands around his biceps and the kiss dragged on, grew deeper. He had scoot himself to be knelt on the bed, straddling me, and our tongues were wrestling each other, his teeth seizing my lip just enough to tug as he pulled away and worked towards my ear. I’m not particularly sure what biological connection ears have with genitalia, but his hot breath pooling into it, his lips grasping the lobe, his tongue sliding just behind it, against my throat, made my body quake with want and I grabbed him tightly, locked my hands at his back and moaned. One of his arms had snuck under my shoulder and was in the loose back portion of my hair, just toying with the strands, and the other was stroking along my jaw. I can’t tell you how many times I had laid in bed, me and my own palm or with some faceless, nameless lover, and dreamt of this, fantasized about Kaoru touching me, kissing me, pleasuring me, and to have it be real now, even after we had been together for longer than I had ever shared my life with another before, I sometimes wondered if I would open my eyes and find out I was only dreaming.

Thankfully when I opened my eyes, realizing the sensations had stopped, I was looking up into his, those dark, sensual, murky-water death eyes and I knew this was real, and even better, I knew he loved me, but he told me, anyway. “Kyo, I love you,” he moaned in a half-whisper and it was the kind of confession you utter and realize as you say it how true it is, I could see it in the hopelessly devoted expression of his face. “I love you so much…” And before I could answer, though he knew the answer, his mouth was on mine again and then they were on my throat and my patience dwindled when he started to rock his clothed hips against my hard cock, his own ache obvious in his pants. I worked him out of the wife beater, first, tossing it to the floor, tugged him down to suck on the mark, his hands squeezing my shoulders so hard I could feel the crescents of his nails dig themselves into my skin. I grabbed him and rolled him over, slinking off the bed and grabbing the ankles of the loose sweat pants, tugged them off, his cock bobbing as it was freed and he put a hand over his mouth, a shy gesture he did sometimes, eyes closed, that was strangely erotic, his fingers splayed over his parted lips, one crooking to dip past them and he bit back a particularly throaty moan around a knuckle.

I crawled back onto the bed and he parted his legs for me, more than willing for what was to come, and I spit into my hand and rubbed it over myself to ease the penetration a little. He was used to me by now, and I was too impatient to find which bag we had put the lube in. I hooked one slender leg over my shoulder, the other splayed out against the bed and pressed my crown to his puckered entrance and _pushed_ and when I watched the tear roll across his temple and into his hair, not from pain, but the raw emotion, the wide-open bareness of being with me, system overdrive after the show and now sex and one of those floodgate moments of realizing that yes, he didn’t just think we were in love, we were, I leaned into him and kissed him soundly, swallowing every moan and plea and cry of pleasure as I made love to him. He bucked and repositioned his legs several times to gain leverage and rock with me, undulating into each thrust and I couldn’t think about the fact that I was inside him because there was such an ungraspably sacred concept there, something I was mildly afraid to confront, that I guess really shouldn’t be done flippantly, as so many do, as I was guilty of having done, surely, but I suppose it’s only this sacred when done correctly. Certainly, sticking your dick in someone you’d just met, or only knew for such encounters, just to get off was wholly different from being inside the person you loved, shared parts of yourself with, adored with your whole heart, cherished for the silliest reasons, even if the mechanics were the same.

No, this was surely something sacrosanct, rough or not, pounding into his body or not, because I loved him, adored him, cherished him for being so obsessively particular and laughing at bad jokes, and more importantly, more incredibly, and not least of all, most appreciated, he loved me, too.


	7. Birth of a Golden Age

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toshiya tells it like it is.

I wasn’t asleep. I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know why, I just… when I closed my eyes, my mind wouldn’t turn off, so I’d been in bed mentally dissecting quarter counts of the bass line I was currently working on, wanting something technically intricate, something that would challenge me to play, when I heard Die gasp down the hall, heard his mattress squeak. I cracked one eye and listened more closely. He sat up, I could tell from the sound of the mattress and the sheets being thrown back and the quiet tap of his bare feet hitting the cold floor as he stepped out of bed. He walked out into the hall and I heard him come towards my room, push the door open, peak his head in. In the darkness, I saw the outline of him there, black on black. “Totchi?” he croaked, his voice still sleepy.

I rolled slightly. “Hmm? Nan desu ka.”

He stepped into the room. “I--I’m sorry, but… can I sleep with you tonight? I had another… another one of those dreams. I’m just kinda freaked out.”

I threw the comforter back and sat up a little. “Come on, DaiDai.” He came to the bed and curled up next to me and I laid a hand over his heart, resting my head on his arm. I could feel his pulse fluttering under my hand, still afraid from whatever had startled him up out of his sleep. I frowned, letting my finger stroke his bare skin, trying to comfort him, and I could hear that he had woken up in tears, was still crying a little. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head violently and I could tell now for certain he was still crying. I put my arm a little more securely around him, tucked my chin into his shoulder, felt his hair on my face. He reached up and stroked at my arm with both hands, his long fingers callused, but their warmth felt good, felt tender. “I don’t want to talk about it, no, I just needed somebody to be next to. Had to know you were still here.”

My brows knit together and I squeezed him hard, kissing the closet available skin, which happened to be his throat, and he shivered. “Of course I’m here, DaiDai! Ne, go to sleep… I’m right here with you, no bad dreams.”

He laid stiffly beside me and his breathing slowed, evened out, his body like an electric blanket, weighting the bed in that familiar, safe-feeling way I had been so used to with Evan and missed without him, and before I knew it, I was asleep, too.

I woke to the smell of coffee (nectar of the gods) and rolled out of bed, staggering to the bathroom to empty my pleading bladder and brush my teeth and throw my hair up, a mess, into an attempt at a bun. I had cut my hair short to let what had once been shaved at the sides catch up, but my hair grew quickly and I was at least able to get it out of my face now. Sleepy, I smiled at myself in the mirror and blew my reflection a kiss. “Mornin’, gorgeous,” I greeted, well, me, and padded back through the bedroom towards that heavenly smell. Now, pause, let me explain calling myself gorgeous. It has come to my attention that a lot of people think I come off as an arrogant, self-centered, egotistical snot, that I’m one of those “know they look good” people (not to say people don’t like me; I’m too extroverted and open-hearted to be disliked, I think I can give myself credit for that), but to tell you the truth, I’ve always had to work on not finding myself unattractive. Knowing I look good, affirming my self-worth, both physical and otherwise, is just something I’ve done for years so that I never fall back into the place I was once and forget that I _am_ beautiful, that I _am_ worth something.

I surprised Die, who was putting two pieces of cold pizza on a plate at the counter, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind and giving him a good squeeze. He jumped, then laughed it off, rubbing my arms around his middle. “Hey, you.”

I rocked him back and forth a little, letting go and grabbing a mug and some tiramisu creamer from the fridge. “Hey, hot stuff.”

OK, pause one more time. Is it just me, or do Die and I act like we’re dating? I mean, pet names and hugs are something we’ve always done, well, _I’ve_ always done, and he’s been living with me now for… shit. Almost a year! It’s a good thing, too. Die and I are the kind of people that don’t really know what to do by ourselves, and though I had a boyfriend when he moved in, I was single now, and Die had been trying to get sober (which he has been successful in), so he stayed here with me now, and we kept each other company, staved off the loneliness. But, ever since Evan had dumped me (it was still a pretty raw wound, really… he had been _so good_ to me, I had never loved someone like that) and Die was still pretty nervy, putting himself back together without the booze, and without Kaoru, we’d gotten really close, and lately… Hell, I dunno, you be the judge, but I think this is what sexual tension feels like.

OK, play.

He grabbed the coffee pot, poured it into my mug, offered me the rest of the pizza, which I took, box and all, and sat at the counter to eat. I could tell from his track suit and sweaty hair that he had already gone jogging this morning, had maybe been up for several hours, despite the fact it was only eight or so, and I was worried, because Die had enough trouble sleeping as it was and lately, it had been getting pretty bad, was wearing off on me. He sat down with just a bottle of water and his pizza and got that far-off look in his eyes and I nudged his ankle with my foot. He blinked at me, shrugging. I playfully tapped his chin with my fist and clicked my tongue. “What’s bugging you, huh? Don’t lie, I know you to well, something’s up.”

He frowned, chewed his crust thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Just… stuff. I mean, recording always stresses me out, you know that, my brain just starts going into hyper speed and it’s hard to shut it off and, well…” He looked away, gave an apologetic little shrug. “I kind of feel like I’m imposing on you… I mean, this is _your_ apartment. When I moved in, it was to help me get sober and, not to give myself too much credit, I think it’s getting a lot easier to stay clean and… just… feel like I’m over staying my welcome.” He shrugged again, wouldn’t look at me.

I wanted to hit him. This is Die, by the way. Overly giving, overly nice, always feels like he’s imposing on people, that (when read between the lines once you’ve known the man as long as I have) he isn’t good enough, isn’t important enough to gladly warrant the help of those who love and care for him. (The darker side of him was this meek impression’s polar opposite, and a monster to see, but that demon had laid dormant for a good while, now, and I did not miss it.) I glared at him, instead, not the first time we’d had a similar conversation. “I _told_ you, DaiDai. If I don’t want you here, you’ll know, because I’m a loud mouth and I’ll _tell_ you! Geez… I mean, if this is your subtle don’t-wanna-hurt-my-feelings way of saying you don’t wanna stay here anymore, I’m not holding you prisoner, but if you think you’re “over staying your welcome”, you’re wrong. You’re _always_ welcome here.” I reached out and brushed some of his hair back from his face, what of it had fallen from his ponytail. “You’re my friend, Die. I love you.” And I meant that.

He blushed, tried to hide it awkwardly, but finally faced me and smiled. “Love you, too.” He finished just the one piece and tossed the other slice of pizza into the box I was eating out of, getting up and putting his plate in the sink. “I’m sorry, it’s just… I feel like I’m using you! I don’t want you to see it like that, is all. And I hope you know how much I appreciate you looking out for me.” He sighed, hugging me around the shoulders and kissing my cheek. “For putting up with me.”

I leaned into him and smiled. “It’s nothing. You should know that. All of us, Christ, why do we play so tough to each other? Nobody in this fucking band should _ever_ feel like their crossing a boundary when asking for support. I swear, it’s like we try and act like we don’t love each other as much as we do.”

He pulled away and started towards his bathroom, shrugging. “Mm, probably because we’re scared of how close we all are, having all the dark secrets we do. I stink, I’m taking a shower.” That’s Die for you, again. He’ll say the most profound things flippantly, I honestly think maybe because he’s air-headed enough to not realize how profound his statements sometimes are, and he’s probably right. All of us are from very different backgrounds with one thing in common; we all had shitty childhoods, we all carried a lot of baggage, we all were grateful for each other and what we were now because it meant we didn’t have to deal with who we had been, were as removed now from the teenagers and children we had come from as night and day, and thank fucking God for that, because I wouldn’t relive my teenage years if my life depended on it.

But Die and I had never talked about that. He didn’t know what I had been through, what my life had been like, and I didn’t know about his, we just both understood it hadn’t been pretty, we didn’t want to talk about it, and we had the decency not to ask. It’s funny, how close we all were, and yet we really hardly knew anything about one another before the time we had met. I mean, I knew Kaoru’s mom had passed away before we all met him, and that he and his sister didn’t get along, or more, loved each other, but reminded each other of some sordid past too much to keep in touch, I knew Shinya had been a prisoner in his own home, made to feel like some fragile princess locked away in a tower, that Kyo had been raised by his mother, who was as mentally stable as Japan was geologically speaking, and Die’s family had been dirt poor, but those were the bare bone facts. Those were just stories. They weren’t lives. What we knew of each other was the life we had made together, as a band, as a hodge-podged family of five truly very different kids that had grown up into what I guess you could call men now that were inseparable, joined at the heart. I loved them all, so much, and though we often tried to hide it, for one reason or another, pretended like it wasn’t there, I hope they all knew that.

I finished my breakfast and poured another cup of coffee, curling up on the couch to watch the news while Die sang in the shower. We were supposed to meet at the studio at one to work on the record some more, but there were still a couple hours to just relax, and I intended to use them for just that. Recording was grueling, especially since we had just finished a tour before we’d gone back in the studio (a tour that had gone smashingly, by the way, hitting small venues and night clubs and remembering what it was like to be just some band playing because it was fun, and not for the money). Any moment of peace was quickly taken advantage of.

Die got out of the shower and I heard him playing his guitar and I waited long enough for there to be hot water again before jumping into the shower, myself, taking my time and getting dressed at a leisurely pace, looking forward to the two days off after today, especially since we had been in the studio for three weeks, straight. Not all recording, some of it was spent fiddling over songs we couldn’t agree on, ironing out kinks and trashing a few iffy pieces all together, or tearing some apart and Frankensteining them back together into something more desirable. I’d never know, in this life, at least, what it was like to give birth, but I’ve got a feeling that writing music is close. I was exhausted. So, mostly because Shinya had to go to his cousin’s wedding in Osaka, Kaoru had caved and given us a short break, and I already had plans to party.

Partying without booze is… interesting, I’ll admit. Since I had officially appointed myself as the guardian angel of Die’s sobriety, I had decided not to drink, either, or at least, not around him, or at anytime that I would go home drunk after. I had had a few nights out of the house, staying with friends and going to get lit, but I was finding that the more I lived without equating alcohol with fun, I enjoyed myself more thoroughly. Besides, I loved to dance, it was an acquired passion from my stays in New York when Evan and I had dated, and dancing is best done sober, I promise, because shaking your ass with four martinis under your belt was kind of like walking on stilts; it required a lot of coordination in a state where you were not accustomed to the way you perceived your movements. But whatever, that’s neither here nor there, either way, I planned on going out on my nights off, and I was taking Die with me. He’d been down lately, he needed to get out! Maybe finally meet some hot guy, get laid, at least get some attention, because Lord knows, the kid deserved it. He’s probably one of the most attractive people I’ve ever met, and even seeing him almost every day for the past twelve years, his good looks never wore off.

One o’clock rolled around and me and Die arrived at the studio a little late, there had been an accident on the way and we were delayed, and Kaoru glared at us when we came in the door. Let me make one thing very clear: when it comes to work, especially recording and writing, Kaoru is an outright asshole. He’s rude, abrupt, condescending, and easy to frustrate, often finding it hard to articulate what he wants out of us, and is even harder on himself. He’s made me cry on more than one occasion, and pissed the others off so bad they had just walked out, but we put up with it, because crude as his methods were, Kaoru was a great leader. He brought out the potential in all of us, thread it together into something truly wonderful, intrinsically just knew how to blend our personal styles into one that was cohesive and breath-taking and though we each acknowledge that we got lucky being the mix we are, Kaoru is the glue that holds it all together. Dir en grey is nothing without any one of us, and it certainly isn’t anything without Kaoru.

But, he doesn’t think so highly of himself, just knows what he wants, becomes possessed by the certain sound or tone he has in his head and throws himself into his work (he’s lost so much weight, looks his age right now, I don’t know if he has slept in days) and at that exact moment, I could tell that it was straining his relationship with Kyo, who was in the booth right then, not even wearing his headphones as Kaoru barked into the talk-back mic, rolling his eyes and I could tell he was already pissed because Kaoru had gotten short, trying to explain something that just couldn’t be verbalized on what was wrong with that last take, what he needed from Kyo, vocally. I didn’t think I wanted to be here right now, Kyo and Kaoru both were passionate, stubborn people and what might happen when and if they finally turned on each other was a sight I could live without ever seeing, so I sat down next to Shinya, who was editing through his drum tracks, layering them together to his liking.

He gave me a half smile and put the headphones around his neck. “You’ve entered a shit storm. Be invisible, it’s been pretty tense.”

Thanks, Shin. Thank you, for that. I literally felt nauseous, because though it was common in stressful situations and something that just happened and then blew over with us, we often all had screaming matches as an ill-released outlet of frustration and stress and I did not feel like dealing with that bullshit right now. I leaned my cheek on Shinya’s boney shoulder and pouted. “I noticed. Not the greatest day to be late, huh?”

Shinya jerked up his brows, obviously annoyed, himself. “No, not really, but at least you missed them coming in. They were already arguing when they got here.” Shinya was a subtle man, but I understood his secret language and knew what he meant was “duck, kid, this one’s gonna be bad”, knew he could already foresee and was woefully anticipating a real kicker of a fight. Maybe not today, but soon. Other than Die and Kaoru’s past violence, we had never had any physical altercations among us, but like I said, we could yell and cuss and raise hell at each other until we were all hoarse and winded. That sounds silly, doesn’t it, considering I was just talking about how much we loved each other, but it’s how we were. When we loved, we loved deeper than any ocean, and when we had finally been around each other too much, had pissed each other off for the last time that day, or week, or hell, even just that hour, it was _on_. Thankfully, like shotty plumbing, once the pressure was relieved everything began to work normally again, but fuck, we had some bad fights.

Die had made himself scarce, was in a corner practicing like Kaoru had snappishly told him to do yesterday, and I envied him, because I was closest when Kaoru turned around and very curtly told me to not get too wild on our days off, because we couldn’t afford to wait on me again. I just nodded like a scolded child and hoped he cooled down soon. He wasn’t always like this, not this bad, anyway, but he was getting really bent out of shape over this album, wanting everything perfect and finding the right sound elusive. I wanted to joke with him and tell him not to chase the dragon, but Kaoru didn’t have the greatest sense of humor when he was in this mind-set.

Shinya used me for a second opinion for a while as he mixed his tracks and then I made myself look useful and sat in another corner, trying to knock out that bass line I had been working on when Die had come to me last night, wanting someone to keep away the nightmares. I was out of my head, finding that rift in the time-space continuum where everything just made sense and was knocking out the piece easily when a door slamming brought me back to two in the afternoon, Tokyo, Japan, and Kyo was storming out of the recording booth, his lips pressed thin, his jaw tense. Kaoru got up and looked exasperated, putting his arms around Kyo’s shoulders. “Baby, I’m sorry…”

Kyo shoved him away, jerking a hand angrily back through his hair. “No, you’re not. You just don’t wanna get on my bad side, but guess what, baby, you’re there. Just… get off my fucking ass for two seconds, OK? I’m done right now, I can’t do this right now. Give me fifteen, I’m going for a walk, clear my head, maybe wanna take yours off your shoulders just a little less, and I’ll be back.” He didn’t let Kaoru argue with him, grabbed his phone and the key to the studio and left and Kaoru threw himself down in his chair, lighting a cigarette and sucking up the smoke hungrily. Oh this could be bad… Kyo and Kaoru were a great couple, I mean, a really great couple, and their relationship, even as friends, had always consisted of heated arguments, but those were debates just for the sake of a challenge, intellectual stimulation and the like. This was not like them. Kyo and Kao didn’t fight, which meant they didn’t yet know how to act around each other as damage control now that they were officially getting on each others’ last nerve. Oh sweet baby Jesus, I did not want to be an onlooker to this possible explosion.

When Kyo came back, he looked a little calmer, but Kaoru was just more annoyed, this time at himself because he knew being a demanding boss had just officially carried over into being a shitty boyfriend and Kyo did not tell him otherwise. He just strode back into the booth and put the headphones on, clearing his throat and shaking it out (whatever “it” was, nerves, anger, the mundane shit that had no part in our music) and nodded, not to Kaoru, but Kaji. “Alright, I’m good, start the track over.”

Shit. I removed myself from this delicate situation and plugged a direct line into the smaller mixer over on my side of the studio, laid down a couple tracks so I might have some token of productivity to wave around like a shield should Kaoru go off in any direction. Thankfully for both of them, Kyo’s next take was decidedly perfect. They moved on to the next song, and at first, Kaoru tried his very best to be delicate, his voice almost shaking to stay calm and respectful, making polite suggestions, but when Kyo repeatedly found notes hard to navigate and tones difficult to emote in his current state, Kaoru slipped back into his short temper and Kyo officially called it off for the day. He walked out of the booth again and Kaoru shot out of the chair, looming over him. “We don’t have _time_ , Kyo, we’ve got to _finish_ this, we need a single out.”

I wasn’t looking, didn’t want to look, but Kyo’s stare must have been something truly horrifying because I heard Kaoru sit back down. “We’ve got enough for a single. I like that goddamn song. What I don’t like is my boyfriend hounding me when he knows this is hard, even harder when he keeps giving me shit because I’m not fucking perfect.” There was a long pause and I chanced to watch, Kaoru’s head hung. He knew he’d fucked up. Kyo put his hands on the arm rests of Kaoru’s chair and leaned forward, kissing his forehead. “You’re an asshole. I love you, I do, but you’re a total asshole. I’m done for today, work on the other song, get it to where you like it for a pre-release, but don’t ask me for anything else right now, because I haven’t got anything left in me.”

Kaoru was staring at his lap, nodded, lifting his head for a second to give Kyo a short, close-lipped kiss on the mouth as the other was reaching past him for his cell, keys, wallet, and pack of cigarettes sitting mixed with all of Kaoru’s things on the desk in front of him. Kaoru looked ashamed of himself, couldn’t look at his lover when he asked “I’m sleeping on the couch tonight, aren’t I?”

Kyo laughed, a little bitterly. “Oh yeah. See you at home.” He smiled a little and took two steps, came back, hugged Kaoru around the neck and kissed him again and then left, waving to the rest of us. I breathed a little sigh of relief, thankful everything had depressurized and not left us all to suffer the consequences of their quarrel and Kaoru rubbed at his eyes. I took my chances and got up, handing Kaoru the USB with my two rough tracks on it. He gave me a ghost of a smile, as much a smile as a man could make, under as much pressure and as exhausted as he was, and popped it into his laptop, putting on his headphones and closing his eyes and for seven agonizing minutes, I just watched him sit there, motionless, and listen to my work. He finally pulled the headphones off and looked at me with his dark eyes that spoke the apology his pride could not, asking me tiredly if I minded using a different cord and laying down the first track again real quick. I obliged, plugging in with the different equipment, which he ran through a better mixer and when I was done, he thanked me in a short tone, collected USBs from Shinya and Die and told us to get out of there for the day, that he’d work on the song by himself and to take it easy for a couple days.

I squeezed his shoulder and told him not to stay too late, then slung an arm around Die, heading back out to my Mercedes. Shinya caught my arm as he was digging around for the keys to the BMW he rented while in Tokyo. “Hey, do me a favor and call Kyo at some point tonight, make sure things smoothed over and Kaoru got home, OK?”

I nodded, Die trailing ahead, tactfully seeming not to listen. “OK, yeah… why me? Why don’t you do it?”

Shinya rolled his eyes. “Because they expect concern from you. If I call and ask, it’s suspicious. Just do it, alright?” I laughed and agreed, waving goodbye to him and Die and I head back to our shared apartment. I hadn’t yet told him my plans for this weekend, so I decided I needed to drop it on him soon.

“I’m going out tonight,” I started casually. “Just to the clubs, ya know, wind down.” He nodded, half-listening, that full-upper-body-and-head groove that proved he wasn’t paying attention. I smacked him a little in the shoulder to get his attention. “Hey! I said I’m going out tonight!”

Die rubbed his shoulder, pouting. “I heard! Geez, you didn’t have to hit me. And?”

“And! You should come with me. You need a destresser. Some sexy-fine man to take your mind somewhere else, hmm?” I tried to make cute, persuasive faces at him, but again, his attention waned from me and he was staring out the window.

“…He’s gotten really thin, hasn’t he?” Of course. Kaoru. I reached over and squeezed Die’s hand, empathizing. I loved Kaoru, too. It must surely be harder to ignore his current state when you had shared ten years of your life with the man.

“Yeah, he… he’s pretty skinny. But, I mean, it’s just what stress does to him, you know that!” I tried to perk him up, tried to reassure _myself_ that Kaoru would be fine. “He’ll pull his hair out and smoke like a chimney until the album is done, and then he’ll binge on cheeseburgers and sleep for four days straight, and he’ll be right as rain.” I squeezed Die’s hand some more, rubbing the back of it. “Ne, he’ll be OK, Die, don’t let it worry you.” He was silent for a moment and I pat his wrist. “So? You didn’t answer me. Are you coming with me tonight?”

Die sighed, leaning his head back against the seat and looking at me behind his blue-tinted sunglasses. “Yeah. Guess I have no choice, huh? You’d just bug me until I came with you.”

I laughed, pulling into the parking garage and circling up to my spot. “Yeah, I probably would.” We carried our stuff back to my apartment, his battered old acoustic he used for practice and writing only, my favorite bass, for similar purposes (all our instruments for the album were sort of spreading themselves out around the studio) and I went to order some tempura from the place downstairs. I couldn’t cook, not to save my life, unless scrambled eggs and toast was worth my life, so I relied a lot on Die’s decent skills and the local restaurants. Die had crashed out on the couch for a while and I went downstairs and down the street to pick up my order, coming back and making two plates, taking one to Die. He smiled, thanking me, insisting he wasn’t really all that hungry, but I glared until he ate and we watched some shitty drama before I got up to get ready, remembering I had promised Shinya I would call Kyo.

I started pulling out outfits from my dresser while the phone rang, mobile pressed up to my ear with my shoulder. Kyo answered on the third or fourth ring. “Hey! Just seein’ how you’re doin’, if you and Kao cooled down… you aren’t really gonna make him sleep on the couch, are you?”

Kyo laughed and I imagined him at his kitchen counter, maybe half way in between there and the bedroom. I don’t know why, I really think Shinya’s psychic crazy is rubbing off on me, or maybe we’re all so close it’s easy for me to just know what Kyo’s doing right now. Either way, he answered my question. “I’m still pissed at him, really. I understand that he’s a neurotic, passionate artist and all, but it still drives me up the fucking wall to have him get in my face like that. But no, we’ve cooled down, because I can’t stay mad at him. Actually, he just got home a while ago, I drew him a bath, poured him a big glass of wine. I’m too worried about him to stay mad, ya know?” There was that concern again, and I wondered, not for dirty reasons, what Kaoru might look like under the baggy t-shirts and loose-fitting jeans, if he was as skin-and-bones as his hands and slim neck hinted he might be, were his ribs visible under a tight span of pale, pale skin? I hoped not, for his sake.

I sighed, pulling out a mesh shirt I’ve had for ages, some ultra-gay late-90’s number, but tossed it on the bed as a possible option, anyway. A touch of trash, a touch of class… always have to be balanced. Believe it or not, I’m actually a fabulous multi-tasker (oh Christ, I just used the word fabulous… there obviously is a subconscious process making me more gay as I prepare to go out tonight) and continue on with my conversation with Kyo, not missing a beat. “You’re such a good boyfriend, Kyoni.” I don’t know where the nickname had come from, but I was subjected to much torture for suffixing his name with -chan. Ever. And KyoKyo just didn’t work very well. “Take care of him, yeah? He really wears himself down!”

Kyo hummed, dissatisfied, and the slight sounds I caught of clothes rustling put the impression of his arms crossed tight with worry across his chest, maybe leaning against the small breakfast table now. “He does… and there really isn’t any talking to him when he’s like this. I just… hold my breath and try to make sure he eats and hope we finish soon, before something happens, before he just collapses on me, or worse, I lose my patience and beat the snot out of him for being such a prick.” He chuckled a little, letting me know this would never happen, that if he ever lost his patience, there would be destruction, but he would not take his anger out directly on Kaoru, would never hurt him.

I smiled a little, digging through my jewelry box for my favorite ring, which liked to sink its way down to the bottom. “Mm, OK, hot shot. You’re responsible for him. …And I don’t envy you.” We both laughed and I finally found the ring, giving a triumphant little “ha!” and I knew I needed to start trying on outfits now. “Alright, love, I’m gonna let you go so you can get back to pampering your man. I’ll talk to you later. Bye!”

He returned my parting and I closed the phone, tossing it onto the bed, and began putting on and taking off outfits for about an hour, posing in front of the mirror, messing with my hair, trying to find something that looked good, but didn’t look like I’d actually done this, didn’t belie that I had agonized over how I had looked, was relaxed and casual. At long last, I settled on a tight pair of jeans that showed off the fact I have an _amazing_ ass (which I compromised over the fact that they also squished the hell out of my balls and took expert maneuvering to walk in comfortably) and a plain green and white baseball-style three-quarter sleeved shirt. A pair of green Converses and my Gothic font ‘T’ necklace (a gift from Evan, but I loved the necklace itself too much to have shoved it away with the rest of my “Evan Shit” box in my closet) completed the ensemble and I was satisfied that I looked pretty damned great.

I went back into the living room to find that it was still pretty early, only seven, but it would take an hour to get to my favorite club, anyway, and Die wasn’t ready yet. His door was open and he was wandering around, digging through his stuff, shirtless, his skinny brown chest bare, the clean expanse of his back bisected by the nodular string of his evident spine. He was certainly headed in the right direction, though, outfit wise. He was wearing a pair of black Pumas and grey, worn jeans that were just loose enough to hang low on his narrow hips, but not detract from the fact that he had great legs, or more, hinted enough to make one want to see more closely. Not to say that _I_ wanted to take Die’s pants off, but, ya know…

He was getting more and more frustrated, cursing and muttering to himself, and I finally went into my room and dug out a thin black shirt that had a line of four or five buttons at a low neck, the material ribbed, and it was three-quarter sleeved like mine. I tossed it at him from his door and he looked at it suspiciously, pulled it on, looked at himself, and huffed approvingly. “Wow. Perfect!”

I tossed my hair over my shoulder just as he was pulling his down to brush, grinning. “I know, I’m amazing. You almost ready to go?” Die nodded and spritzed himself with cologne, giving his reflection one last good squint before coming out into the living room, checking his pockets for wallet, phone, keys… We got all our stuff together and headed to the elevator, and then the garage, getting into my car. I put the key in the ignition but Die reached over and laid his hand over mine before I could start it up.

“Totchi… I haven’t really… been to a club in a while. What if I--”

Even if he wasn’t able to continue, was going to let the sentence just die there, I cut him off. “I’m going to be right there with you all night if I have to. I want you to have fun, not worry about wanting a drink! You get uncomfortable, you start feeling like you’re about to crack, we get the hell out. But don’t you worry, I will be by your side and at your service for support and distraction, so come on! Let’s have fun.” He pursed his lips at me, but leaned back, buckling himself in, and I finally started the engine and began driving across town through shitty traffic to the club.

I took his arm through the parking lot and the crowd outside, pushing my way to the door and the bouncer let us in immediately. It was a nice perk of fame, really, because when I had first moved to Tokyo, I had to wait in that line for an hour or more to get in, and now no one even asked questions, just let me in. We didn’t even have to pay cover. We pushed in through the crowd hovering at the door, looking out over the place; a gutted warehouse, with bars lining each side that were finished to look like industrial grade steel and platforms here and there with poles where go-go boys were grooving, barely clad. Upstairs was a VIP level, but I personal found it lame, liked to be down here on the huge dance floor.

Die looked a little like he wanted to run, out or to the bar, I didn’t know, so I grabbed him and found our way into the middle of what was already a good crowd, rubbing my body all over his. I wasn’t trying to seduce him, but I figured if I could get him to want to fuck me, maybe he wouldn’t want a drink. That’s logical, right? Either way, he finally played along, grinding back against me, biting his lip in that coy way people who think they don’t know how to dance do, neither of us looking at each other, just using each other as props, our eyes searching past one another to the crowd around us. Now, let’s get one thing straight; I have been with just about every race at this point in my life, from slender, nerdy white guys, to bulging-muscled, well manicured black guys, even once a swagger-laden Latino kid in LA, but I thank whatever put me here for being Japanese, because Asian men, specifically Japanese men, have always been my drug of choice. It’s a matter of opinion, I know, but if you’re asking me, Japanese men are the most beautiful on the planet, hands down.

Tonight was obviously trying to prove me wrong. Every face I found, each pair of eyes that met mine, were plain, average, ordinary, some downright ugly. Everyone kind of looked like they had dressed in the dark, or that a Latin drag queen had stolen their wardrobes and replaced it with hers, and I thought “Tokyo, why have you forsaken me!” because this club always had the crème de la crème of hotness. I guess things had changed in the district in the year I had been neglecting it (even with Evan, I’d come out to the clubs, I had to say, I liked the attention) and I was severely disheartened. But, always positive, I excused it for the early hour and felt lucky at least I had Die to look at and we danced for a while before going towards the back to sit and smoke and chat and people watch. Not so much cruise, the crowd was still pretty bland.

Die and me were shamelessly making fun of an older looking guy two tables down that made me look straight as an arrow when this demure-eyed, full-lipped artsy type glided up to our table and leaned over, shouting his name in Die’s ear and apparently asking for a dance, because he looked at me like “Oh God, what do I do?” The kid hunting him looked at me and asked “Are you his boyfriend?” and I shook my head. “He’s just shy. He’s all yours!” I grabbed Die and shoved him out of the table. “Go! Go! Wave me down if you need help.”

I watched him go and lost him in the crowd, sat and finished my cigarette before being responsible for Die and found my way over to one of the go-go platforms. It didn’t take long for the kid working on the pole to realize I was a better dancer than he was and he gave me a hand up, letting me showcase my skills and take advantage of the view over the club, finding Die, who was still dancing with Hot Art Student, but he must have been uninteresting or something because Die looked bored and uncomfortable. I kept my eye on them like a hawk, making sure uninteresting and possibly socially awkward didn’t become Van Gogh trying to snatch Die’s ass right on the dance floor. After a second, Die noticed me up on the pole and laughed. I winked at him and he pulled away from his suitor, coming to stand at the platform, looking up at me, smiling.

I couldn’t help but ham it up, worked that pole like I was about to get evicted and needed to pay my rent, pulling my shirt up over my stomach to show off my abs, sinking to my knees and undulating as close to belly dancing as I could manage. Die pushed it all the way and pulled a bill from his pocket and tucked it into the front of my jeans and I laughed too hard to keep on the sexy face, jumping down from the platform and slinging my arm around him, and he grabbed me back and, instead of heading back to a table like I thought he maybe wanted, started dancing with me again, our bodies touching in a handful of places. Our hips kissed now and again, his chest was pressed against mine, flush, his fingers were laced at the back of my neck, and mine were dancing down his sides and while one second we were just having fun, just friends dancing in a hot, loud, crowded club, the next, our eyes met, faces just inches apart, and we knew this wasn’t just fun, wasn’t just friends.

My breath caught in my throat and Die’s chocolate eyes were molten with… something… not lust, just _wanting_ and he pulled me against him a little more firmly, moved almost as though he was going to kiss me, but I turned and pressed my face into his neck, whispering in his ear “Let’s get out of here, yeah?” He nodded hurriedly and I grabbed his hand, pulling him through the people and I felt like I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, couldn’t get to the car fast enough, couldn’t drive home fast enough (even though I made it back in twenty minutes), our hands reaching across the seats to touch each other, hands on knees and thighs and around necks, stroking and fondling and shooting glances in the dark, but it was almost as if we were trying to pretend like we weren’t doing it, probably because if we got too involved in the task, if Die had as raging of a hard-on as me, we would just start fucking right here in the car and careen off the road and die.

Finally, we got to the garage, finally, I parked the car and we got into the elevator and we stood there, back of our hands touching we stood so close, but just stood, impatiently going up to our floor, down the hall, and I fought with the keys to get the door open. At long last, we were in, safe from any prying eyes, safe to get naked and fuck as dirty and freaky as we wanted, but first things first…

I grabbed Die by the shoulders and all but slammed him into the wall, taking advantage of my slight height over him, made greater by the fact that his knees were weak and he couldn’t stand up straight. His hands were resting on my hips and he was looking at me expectantly, but I didn’t kiss him. Instead, I leaned in, brushed my lips against his jaw, asked quietly “Are you sure about this? Is this a mistake?”

Die panted out a laugh and I could see his heart thundering under his skin, the shirt open and exposing most of his chest. He licked his lips and gave a half smile. “Only one way to find out, huh?” He surprised me by grabbing me at the back of the shoulders and pulling me down, crushing our lips together, but I wanted to be that close, couldn’t get close enough, it seemed. We stood there in the foyer and kissed, practically ate, each other for a while before we started making our way, joined at the mouth, across the living room and towards my bedroom, trying to get each other out of our clothes.

I had my tongue clamped around his and was trying to get his belt off when we finally made it to the bed and he sat down and pushed my hands away, taking off the belt for me, shucking his jeans off and tossing them across the room, all while hardly breaking the kiss. I was already just in a pair of underwear and my jewelry, but Die had a weird affinity for going commando, and I had to finally pull away from his lips to look at his bare body. I had never been able to appreciate it like this before, especially not when he had such a tasty-looking erection (I have an oral fixation, back off) made all the better by the fact he had said hard-on because of me. We caught our breaths for a second, panting and just staring at each other and he wrestled my boxer-briefs down around my ankles. I held onto his shoulders so I wouldn’t fall over stepping out of them and kicked them over towards his jeans, forgotten like the rest of our clothes.

He stood back up and I was _shaking_ , feeling silly it hadn’t all clicked together sooner, that I hadn’t noticed how he looked at me, and more importantly, the way I looked at him. I suppose we’re both daft like that sometimes, and maybe this is how it was supposed to happen, just, fall into place, or maybe in the morning, we’ll both be fine with being friends again, and say thanks because the sex was good, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t what was going to happen. You love each other this much as friends for as long as we had, you live together for a year, and when the sexual tension comes into play, you might as well count on being together, because you’ve got all the elements of a relationship tied together with a pretty bow, and I felt a little like it’s my birthday. Die was cupping my face and looking at me with this strange intensity rarely evident in those chocolate orbs and I was brushing my fingers down his back, loving the texture of his caramel skin. He’d gotten very tan on our tours in Europe and America and I liked the way he looked.

He leaned in and kissed my lips shortly, smiling. “Lay down. I want to… mm, how to say this… I want to discover you.”

I blinked, confused, but moved to sit on the bed, laying back into the pillows. “Discover?”

Die sat at my side and started stroking feather-light touches across my stomach and I shivered, biting my lip. “Mm, yeah, discover… you have to remember, Kaoru was really my first lover. Everything I learned about sex came from learning how to please him. But, you aren’t Kaoru.” He smiled, saying all this on the shy side of matter-of-fact, not bitter that I was not Kaoru. In fact, he seemed a little glad. “For example, if I touch him here,” he circled his thumb around the outer peak of my right collar bone, and it felt good just to be touched by him, but not spectacular, “Kaoru purrs like a kitten. I want to figure out what makes _you_ melt.” Something about those words made me melt, that was for sure, and I just laid there, letting moans and half of words and grunts fly as he straddled my hips and started at my ears and neck and worked his way down, kissing and touching and licking every inch, it seemed, avoiding my cock and finally working his way to the back of my knees, which were ticklish, and my ankles, which he gnawed on playfully for a second.

It took him almost ten minutes for the whole journey, and he had found nearly every spot I had. My neck, as expected for most people, was sensitive, as were the inside of my elbows and wrists, my stomach, the juncture of hip and thigh, and the valley of my back, which I had arched up for his hands to reach, and stayed arched up, panting, while he dragged his nails over the skin and I suffered in fear of cumming before we had really even started anything. He crawled back up over me, kissed my face and asked “So how did I do?” knowing full well he had done fantastically.

I played along anyway and rolled him over, fisting my hands in his hair telling him “Why don’t I show you how well you did?” I returned the treatment on him, starting backwards, kissing his ankle, moving up one long, slender leg, brushing the pads of my fingers against the back of his knee, which made him hiss, perhaps ticklish as well, but I could tell there was pleasure in it. I crawled and let my hair brush against his thighs, breathing on his dick, but not touching it, as he had tortured me, and rubbed his hips, sucked at the peak of one sharp bone, reaching under to grab at what little there was of his scrawny ass (it was cute that way) and he lifted his hips to help me. I dipped my tongue into his navel, slid it up the gully of his ribs, moved my hands to rub at his sides and I kissed my way to one nipple, nibbled, the other, sucked, and Die let out this sound that was half-way between “Oh God, don’t kill me!” and “Oh God, please fuck me!”. I sucked a little harder and he emitted the breathy, high-pitched shout again and I had weaseled my way up between his legs, our dicks rubbing together, and he bucked against me, pleadingly. I moved on to his neck, exploring his arms with my fingers, trying to familiarize myself with the feel of his skin, and at last I was back at his mouth, kissing him hungrily while he managed to hook his legs around my waist and pull at my hair, moaning and begging for me.

I reached down and wrapped my hand around his cock and he pulled away, screamed. “N-no, no, Totchi, please… I’m too sensitive, it’s been too long, please, just… nn--” He couldn’t say it, couldn’t ask me what he wanted, but I just stared down at him until he finally spit it out, liked to hear the request, which most are surprised to find I will gladly oblige, frequently. Die blushed and looked away, all but whispering, “Please, Totchi… fuck me?”

Something pulled tight from the back of my tongue to my balls and for a second all I could do was stare at him, then finally smiled. “I’d be happy to.” Leaning over to the bedside table, I dug through the drawer for lube, finally finding it and coating three fingers, scooting down between Die’s legs and rubbing just one at him while I sucked on his nipples, making him pant, nearly sob, and shout, and he relaxed to me easily. Three fingers fit in no time and I knew he could hardly take anymore, was probably ready to throw me over and rape me--well, rape is a strong word--so I gave him mercy. Wiping my lubey hands off on the towel from this morning’s shower, hung over my lamp where I’d tossed it, I crawled back up Die’s body, caught his mouth in a kiss while I moved to press my crown against him. He threw his legs wide apart and sucked on my tongue and I slid in, easy. Die cried into my mouth, it was a little scary, how involved he got with sex, how sensitive he seemed to be, like it was too much, like it was painful, but he certainly wasn’t trying to make me stop, or push me off. In fact, he was pulling me tighter against him, wrapping his legs around my back, bucking his hips to urge me to thrust and when I finally started, he laid back, relaxed, giving a grateful sigh, taking it and insisting occasionally for more or harder, his hands tracing my back, my shoulders, my hair, his lips finding mine and I felt like such a bastard because, being a man, all I could think in that moment was how tight his ass felt, how he squeezed and rocked against me and how I couldn’t believe I was fucking him, Die, the hometown hottie of the band that all the fans seemed to swoon for, if only for his gorgeous smile, his innocent chocolate eyes, and _I_ was fucking that gorgeous body.

The sex was just sex. Great, amazing, hot, sweaty, freaky sex, but just sex. I’ve never worked so hard in my life! Die was amazing, his responses more than enough to get me off, and the way he touched me and held me to him was… affirming. It wasn’t the sex, but the before and after that meant something. The before, of kissing him and exposing him, of having him expose me, and after, laying breathless side by side, face pressed into the cool pillow, his fingers squeezing mine. It was the after of him rolling onto his side and kissing my jaw and telling me thank you, something that I don’t think I’ve ever heard in regards to sex, and the before of when our eyes met in the club and we just _knew_ , finally understood that yes, we wanted to fuck each other, yes, maybe there was even something a little more than that there, and of course, the after of validating these suspicions. It was everything about this night, but it wasn’t the sex. The sex was just a bonus. In the end, what meant something was that after years of friendship and admiration, I felt like I finally really _knew_ him, and he, in turn, had discovered me.


	8. The Fall of a Prominent Figure

So remember I had said that the before and after of the amazing sex me and Die had was what was really important about the whole event of that night? Well, here’s a more detailed account of the after.

We had finally gotten up and washed off a little, laid back down in my bed, Die tucked against my chest, my arms wrapped around him, just talking. His hair felt good to run my fingers through, his skin felt soft and warm pressed against mine, and somehow, skinny as we were, our bodies fit, and I found I rather liked just holding him like this. We talked about where we might go from here, asking each other if we thought maybe the sensations of adoration and affection might ebb with the afterglow, but I told him I doubted it, and he admitted he had been developing a monstrous crush for months. I laughed and kissed his head and then, very quietly, he asked what growing up had been like for me.

This was both a trust issue and an emotional scarring issue. I didn’t like thinking about what I had grown up like. Well, not so much the growing up part, but what, in my teenage years, I had been like, how stupid I had been, and to convey these stories on someone was showing absolute trust in them. I could spare this for Die, I trusted him yesterday, not just now, but it was still hard to explain. When I didn’t talk for a while, he started first, telling me about what it was like living with four other boys in a room and parents that worked themselves so hard trying to keep them all fed that they had no patience left for the children themselves. He told me about always being the outcast, always being teased and friendless, and then he told me about his brother. I smiled when he explained how Takeda had always looked out for him, had always kept Die under his wing, and then he got to the part where his brother was no more… I suppose it shouldn’t have shocked me. Die still talked to his family, as much as they all sort of hated each other, but I had never heard mention of a Takeda.

He laid silently against me for a while after recounting what it was like, how surreal it was, to see his brother’s face gone lifeless and I guessed he was done, squeezed him and kissed his hair and just held him for a while. I didn’t know if I was ready yet to tell my story, if I could manage to divulge the things that would make me fall silent and grim, but Die had done it, so I guessed I could to.

“I feel a little like a poser,” I chuckled a little, petting his hair, “having some idea of what the rest of you went through and really, I didn’t go through anything particularly shitty. Not the actual events of my life, anyway. I was just… really depressed. I mean, Mom kicked Dad out early on, and that really wasn’t so bad, in fact, it was better without him, and I _hate_ my step dad, but other than being an asshole, there’s not much to him, and we weren’t poor, and I wasn’t sick, or any of that. I was just… when I turned fifteen, I fell into this weird rift of… not being able to find anything enjoyable anymore. I was fifteen, and jaded! I felt alone all the time, hopeless, lost, misunderstood, which is unfair considering I hardly understood myself, but I really wasn’t suicidal, per say. I never actively went out of my way to “end it all”, but I did a lot of stupid shit that could have gotten me killed, and didn’t care.

Like, I remember driving around after parties with my friends, all of us blasted, and thinking ‘If we drive through that guardrail right now, if we just plummet off this mountain, I guess that would be alright.’ I walked around at night in every bad neighbor I could find, _asking_ for a fight, I carried a big knife, visible, mostly, just hoping some big fucker would want to teach me a lesson, and maybe I’d fail the exam, ya know? I’m pretty lucky I didn’t end up some yakuza hoodlum in those days, but anybody that had anything to do with a real gang knew I was just some shit-kicker kid, so…

Anyway, one night, my friend Jouji had a gun. A revolver, I mean, John Wayne, old West type shit. Six shooter. There were three of us, me, Jouji, and his cousin, whose name I can’t remember anymore… and we decided to play Russian Roulette.

Thinking back on it now, I can’t believe I did that, I think maybe I didn’t realize there was a bullet in that gun and I put it to my head and pulled the trigger and--thinking about that now makes my skin crawl, scares the hell out of me, and that dry click when the hammer hit the empty chamber? I guess I should remember it fondly, but I don’t. The thought of that sound will make me lose sleep for days. But, we passed the gun around, Jouji’s cousin first, then Jouji, then me, which was pretty shitty odds, I guess? I mean, if it got around twice, I knew I was dead. But anyway, we made it around once, and… Jouji won. Well, lost. Whatever.”

Die jumped in my arms, latched onto me tight. I rubbed his back and sighed. I’d come to terms with all this years ago, but it still haunted me. I no longer blamed myself for Jouji’s death, but…

“His blood, fuck, parts of his _brains_ hit my face, it was all in my hair. I just remember smelling like… meat, like being in a butcher shop. It was dark and I didn’t see the hole in his head and I guess the sound was such a shock, I didn’t register what had happened, and then he slumped over and…” My stomach turned, thinking about it. Looking down and seeing blood spattered on my pale arm, seeing it glisten black against my shirt, feeling it, hot, on my face, and reaching up to touch my hair and pulling away little gobbets of meat and I felt a fragment of bone, but my fingers were shaking so badly I dropped it.

“We ran. We didn’t know what else to do, it was us getting stoned and fucking around with a _gun_ for Christ’s sake, a loaded gun, no less, in Jouji’s parents garage, so me and his cousin just fucking ran. He went one way, and I went through the woods back towards my house so I could wash off in the creek, tell Mom I fell in if she asked. The cops came and asked me if I had been with him the night before, and I told them yes, but that I had left an hour before I knew the Russian Roulette idea got kicked around, and so what’s on record is that Jouji shot himself, alone, after me and his cousin had left. No one… Die, I have never told _anyone_ about that. Ever.”

I realized my voice was shaking and I was crying, but I’d gotten through the whole story. I’d finally let it out. I’m pretty sure Shinya knew, had siphoned it out of my head, most likely on accident (I got the impression he picked up our psychic demons that we kept floating around, not even knowing how they got in his head), but I had never actually voiced it. When it first happened, I was so afraid I would go to jail, that I might be blamed, and then by the time I knew I couldn’t really be charged for his death, I was too ashamed of myself to speak, anyway.

“I started playing bass after that… music… saved me. It was a place I could put everything I hated about my life into something that wasn’t words, that couldn’t tell all my secrets.” His slim brown fingers were dancing over my arm and I caught them, brought them up to kiss. I wanted to ask what he made of all this, of us, but decided right now it didn’t matter. What would come would come, and I felt confident that should we need to, we could slide back into friendship, easily.

We fell asleep and in the morning, I woke up facing him, his hair hiding most of his face, what was visible slack and innocent looking. I caught the bouquet of sex; our mingled sweat, the chlorine-esque tang of sperm, and the inevitable whiff of ass (Shinya tells me there’s a distinct pussy smell with women; I guess it’s just in the job description), but it was a nice aroma, reminded me of the nice surprise last night had been, as if the soreness of my muscles and the closeness of his bare skin did not. This, I had to admit, was nice. I’d figure out whether it was the companionship or Die later, but right now, I allowed myself to just enjoy it.

I propped myself up on an elbow and watched him sleep for a while, carefully brushing his long, black hair out of his face, his long, thick lashes fringed against his cheeks. He was still wearing his thick leather cuff, his favorite ring, the St. Christopher pendant he’d bought in Italy. I was still wearing my jewelry, too, proof of last night’s hastiness, but there was something lovely about it, his bare form in nothing but his most personal adornments, but nothing that actually covered his body from my view. The AC kicked on and fluttered the curtains and a shaft of bright sunlight struck his eyes and Die’s sleepy, chocolate eyes fluttered open. He squinted against the sun, brought his hand up to block it and rubbed, groaning. I chuckled, leaned forward and kissed the end of his nose. “Morning, handsome.”

He smiled and rolled onto his back, out of the light’s path. “Ohayou…” He turned his head and regarded me intensely. “This feels weird.”

My stomach flopped with anxiety and I gave him a pursed look. “Why?”

Die reached out and stroked my cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Waking up next to someone and not being hung over.” He pushed my hair back and his thumb ghosted against my earlobe. “Don’t worry, waking up next to _you_ isn’t weird. Well, unfamiliar still. But not weird.”

I breathed a comic sigh of relief and leaned to kiss him, fitting our lips together, finding, or more, being reminded, that his lips were velvet soft and fit with mine very well. I leaned back and smiled down at him, sneaking my hand around to the small of his back and he started giggling.

“OK, OK, I lied. It’s a _little_ weird. I never actually expected this to happen, I guess.” He shrugged and caught my elbow, pulling my arm around him more. “But, I’m pretty sure I’ll get used to it.”

I was satisfied with that clarification and we finally made our way out of bed. The day went on like nearly any other; he made coffee and I cooked eggs, but unlike most mornings, we leaned close to each other, kissed occasionally, curled up together on the couch instead of on either side of it and he called me “babe” about ten times more than he usually did. I can’t say I minded.

Later on in the afternoon, he decided to go to group, something he had not been to as frequently as the beginning of this whole cleaning-up escapade and Kyo, as if on cue, called and asked if I wanted to go to dinner, said it would probably be best for him to let Kaoru have some alone time for a few hours. I wondered what was really going on behind the scenes, if Kaoru came home stressed and Kyo rubbed his shoulders and the tension that was like an iron gate between them in the studio laid down to rest, or if home was just like work and they shouted at each other and then stalked off to different ends of the apartment to sulk and bitch. I wasn’t going to ask, though, because if it was the latter, I liked avoiding Kyo getting pissed at me. He had a very short temper, and was exceedingly defensive with things he didn’t know how to rectify.

I agreed to meet him at this super-kitsch Mexican restaurant (Japanese college kids dressed up as Pancho Villa wanna-be’s served as waiters and Mariachi played in some mindless, endless, seamless loop, loud, over worn out speakers, but you couldn’t get a better burrito this side of the Prime Meridian) and I drove down, leaving Die a sticky-note on the TV, and met him around six-thirty. His hair was pulled back from his face and he was wearing just a plain grey t-shirt and light jeans, with big sunglasses hiding his eyes. Kyo was the best at being incognito, which made not a damn bit of sense, considering he was the most modified and his tattoos were so distinctive. But there he stood, debatably one of the best known musicians in Japan, just smoking on the sidewalk, and nobody even did a double take. He mustered a smile when he saw me and opened the door to the restaurant, flicking his cigarette off into the gutter. I went in and put an arm around his shoulders in a short hug. We were quickly led to a table in the back, two glasses of raspberry iced tea set in front of us before we could even ask for them (they knew us a little too well here, I think) and I nudged Kyo’s foot under the table. “So, how are you and Kao?” I asked it in a sing-songy voice, as though pretending I didn’t know they’d been at each other’s throats lately, too curious for my own good and wanting to know if there was an end in sight to the madness.

Kyo stirred his lemon down into his drink with the straw, staring at the ice chinking together in the glass. “I don’t want to talk about Kaoru right now…” I could tell by the set of his jaw that he was not mad at Kaoru, but rather, very, very upset. I wanted to reach across the table and squeeze his hand, but Kyo could spring on the defensive, so I avoided it, changing the subject, as subtly requested.

“What are you planning on doing after we finish recording?” I rested my chin in my hand, studying how worn he seemed, something about the way his shoulders hung and the distinct down-turnedness of his mouth telling me that for whatever reason, he was devastated, and a little piece of me begged to know why he didn’t want to talk about Kaoru, wanted to be sure they were just going through a rough patch and Kyo was as concerned as we all were, not that they were over. They were too good together, and I don’t think Kyo could handle another break up. He’d been dropped more times than a bad habit. In fact, Kaoru was probably the first decent catch he’d ever gotten.

He shrugged, pausing to order when the waitress came, then stared back into his glass. “I--I’m really scared for him, Totchi…” Didn’t want to talk about Kaoru, huh? Honestly, with the way this conversation was starting, I didn’t know if I wanted to, either. “He’s…” Kyo huffed out a sigh and I thought that maybe he might actually cry on me. “He’s just so distant anymore… And he hasn’t got any patience at all, not with me, not with himself… I find myself afraid when he’s in the room because I’m sick of getting yelled at. But… Totchi, I love him!” He looked up at me and his eyes were pleading for me to tell him it was OK to take this, that it was OK to deal with Kaoru’s moodier, meaner side, for the sake of that love.

This time I gave into the urge and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “I know you do, Kyo. He loves you, too! It’s just… I mean, you know how he gets. He’s not really Kaoru right now. Just think of it like that. It’s how I get through recording.” I shrugged a little and Kyo sniffed, rubbed under his nose with the back of one hand.

“Yeah, right, he’s not Kaoru. First off, he isn’t, but second, it’s easy for you when you’re just his friend. You don’t have to go home where he still isn’t Kaoru and try to find your lover somewhere in there.” He rubbed his arm and bit his lip. “I miss him… I see him everyday, and I miss him! …We haven’t had sex in almost a month. And he hasn’t kissed me in three days.” His breath hitched and I thought “God, don’t cry, I wouldn’t know what to do!” but Kyo is strong and held himself together. “I’m just scared, I guess, that I wont get _my_ Kaoru back.”

My heart broke for him. I think I’d always known Kyo had wanted Kaoru, and it was surely obvious that Kyo’s only fear at this point in life was loosing what he had gained, after wanting it for so long. And I knew that this was not some delusional fantasy being lived out, either. Like I said, they’re a great couple! And Kyo really loves him, but it’s in these moments that I have to think, for the protection of my friend (which is circular logic, because Kaoru is my friend, too) if I really think Kaoru loves him back. I thought about them together, before we started recording and our brother KaoKao turned into Kaoru-sama, CEO of “PLAY IT RIGHT OR I’LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!”, and remembered watching Kaoru brush Kyo’s hair backstage, seeing him packing Kyo’s things up for him because he was so exhausted after a show, of him leaning into his lover and whispering little nothings in his ear and always smiling when they were together, and always either holding his hand, or touching his shoulder, or knee, always showing him affection, and I was quite sure that yes, Kaoru loved Kyo. But, like I said, the man living in Kyo’s lover’s body right now was not the Kaoru that remembered what affectionate love was, or so it was easier to think.

Our food came and Kyo picked at it. I eyed him suspiciously, urging him a few times to eat, and he finished about half, declaring that he was not hungry, had really just wanted someone to talk to. I frowned and wanted to hug him, but spared him the embarrassment here in public. He smiled at me a little, or tried to, and shrugged. “I’ve just gotta bear through it another week or two, right? I mean, Die did it five times! I can do this, right?” He didn’t seem very sure of himself, but I nodded and rubbed his arm, insisting that I pay and we walked together for a while, just circling the block. We didn’t talk, I knew Kyo was the type that sometimes just needed the company, and when we finally got back around the restaurant, he seemed like he was ready to face things again. I hugged him tight and he rubbed my back, thanking me for dinner and when he pulled away, I brushed the hair back from his eyes and just… looked at him, hard, trying to mentally let him know how much I loved him and cared for him and would always be there should he need me, but I didn’t say the words because he would have called me a pussy, but I’m pretty sure he understood because he rubbed my arm and grinned before he turned and went back towards his apartment.

When I got back to the apartment, Die was lounging around in sweats, his hair loose, and I put my bag by the door and leaned over the arm of the couch and kissed the side of his mouth. He smiled, rubbing his thumb along my jaw. “How was Kyo?”

I went to the fridge to grab a bottle of water, talking back over my shoulder to Die. “He was… stressed. He seems pulled pretty thin right now.” I came back into the living room and plopped down next to Die, leaning into him.

He frowned and put his arm around me, and though I didn’t actively show how much it excited me, it felt good. “Poor guy… I know how Kao can get. I can’t say I have any tips for him, it’s just one of those things you have to soldier through.”

I nodded and snuggled more down against him. “That’s what I told him. I just hope once we’re done recording, they go back to normal.” Die nodded a little in agreement and we fell silent, sitting around watching TV for a while. His hand around me rubbed at my side and he kissed my head once. Desperate though it was, I tallied up these little things, trying to gauge which direction this new arrangement was going. After a while, I had half an answer, because his hand had strayed lower and he was rubbing the pads of his fingers against my hip bone. I purred and nuzzled my nose into his throat.

Die grinned and brought his other hand up to cup my jaw, bringing my face up to kiss me. He pulled back and was flashing a lecherous half-smile. “How ‘bout a repeat of last night, hmm?”

I chuckled. “Mm, how about, a repeat of last night, but backwards?”

He pulled a face, then got my meaning, cocking a brow. “Sure thing.” He put his arms fully around me and kissed me, hard, pulling me against him, and the pace was much more tender and less frenzied than last night, which I wasn’t going to complain about. I worked my hands up under his shirt and rubbed his skin, marveling in how soft it was. He laid me back against the arm of the couch and attacked my neck with his mouth, remembering the reaction he had gotten last night from digging his fingers into my back and started clawing lightly through my t-shirt. I didn’t even try to muffle myself, moaning loudly, shouting at particularly amazing sensations.

Die seemed pleased at his work and sucked hard at my throat. I yelped; it was painful and pleasurable all at once and my hands found his shoulders and squeezed. He let up, continuing to stroke my back, and ghosted kisses around my neck, coming back up and dipping his tongue into my mouth. After just one practice round, he was already an expert at turning me on. I knew the kid had potential…

He molested me for a while longer before finally getting up and pulling me off the couch and into the bedroom, pulling both of us out of our clothes and pushing me back on the bed. I laughed, bouncing on the bed, and Die found the lube from last night, flipping me over onto my stomach and I got my knees under him, restraining myself from wiggling my ass right in his face. He kissed the small of my back, then each ass cheek, a little comically, and I felt a blush rise on my cheeks, but my shyness quickly disappeared when he worked one finger in and started stroking. Again, I didn’t try to keep quiet, letting moans fly as they rose in my throat and gladly submitted to his ministrations, and I was surprised when all of a sudden I felt stretched and he had slipped himself in. I groaned in the back of my throat and leaned my weight back into him, his hands seizing my hips and pushing in good and deep.

Alright, pause. (I know, I know, just at the good parts, right?) Time travel with me back to the 1995. I didn’t know any of guys yet. I was still kicking around in Nagano, really just pretending to play bass with some friends, wanting more, wanting _out_ of my town. I had long hair that I dyed over with blue to give it an ethereal sheen and my step-dad, a real asshole of a Taiwanese businessman, always gave me an ear-full about it, which was all the more reason for me to keep it. At that point, I had not mastered my instrument (in fact, I had just recently decided upon it) enough to really be considered a musician, or to have the skill to make music an outlet, but the rebellion of the act gave me a little comfort.

One night, when I was supposed to be grounded, my friends and I all shoved into a little car and drove down to Tokyo, wanting to see some bands. We hopped from club to club, sneaking in past the bouncers (me and several others of our group were not yet eighteen) and saw at first only the shittiest of the shitty. Bands that sounded like feedback through a blender, singers that couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and hardly made words, just screamed, or worse, sang in melodramatic, warbled tones with lyrics sweet enough to rot your teeth out. I couldn’t really talk, seeing as me and my crew were hardly better, but it was still a pain to listen to. At last, just as we were starting to loose hope on the musical quest and settling for taking the night for its alcoholic winnings, we snuck in the back door of some hole in the wall venue, halfway through a band’s set.

I was pretty wasted by then, but even so, they captivated me. Their singer’s wild nature, their sound, raw and unrefined, but abundant with potential, their drummer crisp and clean and harnessing a finesse that had been absent for a while in those days and I was totally hooked. I made my friends stay (by then, they were jiving on the cheap booze, anyway) and watched the rest of the band’s set, having asked around who they were. I got a few mixed answers, though I was fairly certain the band was called Haijin Kurobarazoku, I was pretty sure their drummer was some seventeen year old from Osaka, their singer was rumored to have just gotten out of prison, or murdered someone, or was documented as being demon possessed (the rumors spinning around about this guy were wild and apparently the members of the crowd passing them along to me were left only to believe what they had hear, seeing this wild, petite man on stage) but everyone agreed, more or less, that his name was Kyo, and they all seemed to say it rather reverently. Their bassist was Kisaki (everyone seemed to know that much; I got the impression he was one of those assholes that was blessed with charisma and liked to ham up his audience after shows, feel important by meeting as many people as possible and introducing himself) and nobody seemed to really know who the guitarist was, except for his girlfriend, who proudly declared that Yuu had just joined them a few days before to play this show.

When they were done, I pushed my way through to the doors leading to the back of the club and sure enough, the band emerged shortly after and I snagged their young drummer by the arm, proclaiming in his ear that I thought he’d been great. The slender, delicate thing turned to me with black eyes that I now take so much comfort in, and trust so deeply, and announced that his name was Shinya, then introduced me to their singer, Kyo. I stood and chatted with them for a while, the first twenty minutes of conversation I had ever shared with two people that would end up being closer to me than family, but I didn’t know that then, and we were really getting into discussing the newest phenomenon in visual-kei (who could wear vinyl in summer?) when a sharp-faced, gravel-voiced, attention-commanding older guy stepped in behind Shinya and announced that he was sorry he was late.

The first time I met Kaoru (I’ve learned he just has this affect on people, though he is completely unaware of it, himself) I felt like it had never been more important in my life to impress this man, and the fact that he was beautiful and flawlessly controlled the situation made it very difficult for me to be impressive. That night, Kaoru was wearing what we would all later admit was a hideous purple tunic (very late ‘80s Brit goth) and tight black jeans with a pair of worn-out Chuck Taylors, his hair, fried and not quite the platinum he wanted it, more of a dingy yellow-red color, pulled back into a ponytail away from his face, some of it falling forward to hide that he had a rather high forehead, which I now know as his friend is one of the many things about his appearance that makes Kaoru self conscious. I don’t know how, though, truly, because Kaoru has this… presence. He always has, probably always will. He just… exudes seductiveness and beauty and like a moth to flame, you listen to him, you want to be near him, you want him to know your name, and I was so glad when Shinya introduced me and Kaoru jerked his head up in a nod of hello, casually shaking my hand for a moment. His wrists were thin and pale and his fingernails were painted red, the polish chipping. Shinya leaned over and yelled into my ear over the next band that had just started that Kaoru played for CHARM, but would most likely be leaving them soon.

I mostly just stood and listened to them talk for a while, none of us even paying attention to the band on stage now; they were no more impressive than the ones in the clubs my friends and I had left earlier that night, and at length, I watched as Kaoru became responsible for yet another influential moment in my life, the second that very night! Already, he had been a part of the whole “real music” experience; watching Shinya and Kyo and Kisaki, and even quiet Yuu who had gone home shortly after with his sweet, reserved girlfriend, had made me want to really buckle down and get good, to be serious about music instead of just using it as some hook to sound cool or be rebellious. I wanted to have something I could feel accomplished about, and at that point in my life, the only accomplishment I ever came by was actually making it through the days and not throwing up when I got really blasted. And there, as I stood among them, feeling part of some elite club, I watched as this punked-out, tall, ropey-muscled older guy walked up behind Kaoru, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and Kaoru turned and gave him a big, obnoxious tongue kiss. I had been pretty sure I was gay for about the past three or four years, but I had never actually seen two men kiss before, and I hadn’t done anything other than suck some guy’s dick at a party once (he may or may not have thought I was a girl, actually) and watching Kaoru all but eat who was his boyfriend that week gave me hope (and the slightest bit of a hard-on) that maybe I wasn’t broken, and maybe I’d actually find somebody to love me.

I guess, thinking back on that now, it’s a little strange I may be finding someone to really love me in the same man that had loved Kaoru for a decade, but either way, Kaoru made quite the first impression on me.

I left that night and drove back to Nagano with my friends as the sun was coming up with Shinya’s number in my pocket and a new excitement about where I might be able to take my life, what I might actually be able to do with myself. For two months, Shinya didn’t call me, and I was too nervous, wouldn’t know what to say, to call Shinya. Instead, for two months, I learned how to actually play my bass instead of get lucky and make sounds come out of it that sounded half-decent. I became diligent in my practice, and even composed some simple things. In a way, it was surely fate that Shinya and I did not reconnect for two months, because it gave me time to mellow out, mature, actually take being a musician seriously, not to mention, I turned eighteen, and when he called me again it was to say that he, Kyo, and Kisaki had formed a new band with Kaoru and another guitarist and that I should come down and see them play that weekend.

I drove down alone, borrowed my mom’s car, thankful my step-dad was away on business because he scolded her for acquiescing to me at all, but my mom loved me desperately and couldn’t stand to not let me have my way most of the time, and by the time I was in Tokyo, I was convinced that this would not be the last time I would be leaving Nagano to come to this city. I walked around for an hour, just soaking the big city up, and finally found the club where what was now La:Sadie’s would be playing. The club was packed and I felt out of place, but too excited to care. The kids around me dressed in tighter, more colorful stuff than the group of rockers I hung out with back in Nagano, their hair a little more asymmetrical, more teased, all looking a little like Cyndi Lauper tried to go Goth, or to a Halloween party. I was old enough to drink, and looked a little longingly at the beers in hands or cocktails with little cut-up fruits sloshing around like life-preservers, but I had spent what little money I had on gas, parking, and the club’s cover. Tonight, I’d get drunk on music.

There was no lighting, really. Nothing spectacular, anyway. I mean, the stage lights were off when the band wasn’t on, and they were on when the band was performing. The PA was a jimmy-rigged mishmash of gear, most likely acquired from the cast-offs of other, larger clubs or the local arenas, but the energy I had been so wowed by when I first saw Haijin Kurobarazoku was still there, with Kaoru’s clean edge thrown in. Though I had not seen him perform that night, I could tell simply by his composure that he was a perfectionist, and though he was obviously still learning his craft, he was creative and already possessed the aesthetic for clarity that he has made our music famous for at this point. I still have the CHARM tape a friend of mine gave me in the two months Shinya and I were out of touch, and sometimes pull it out and give it a listen.

I watched the whole show excitedly, eventually making my way to the front of the stage. I’m still not sure to this day if Kyo actually remembered me, but he came and clasped my hand at one point and sang, gasping, to me, eyes locked on mine, and I had never felt like someone had looked at me so intensely, felt for the first time because of it that I was actually truly being looked at. The show lasted for about an hour, me watching them all, vaguely recognizing their other guitarist as being from ka.za.ri, the drummer of which my friend’s sister had dated for a while. My suspicions where confirmed when Shinya came out to find me after they’d been off stage for about fifteen minutes, introducing me to Daisuke, who insisted to be called Die, insisted it was spelled like the English word, and I could tell he was very insecure, very shy, but when he smiled, my heart lit up. In the same way they Kaoru could make someone feel amorous towards him, make you want to fall at his feet and do his bidding, Die made you want to melt into a tiny puddle of happy, if you weren’t looking too closely and didn’t let your heart break, noticing the tell-tale signs of abuse he exhibited.

We chatted for a while before the whole band decided to go up to an old warehouse they knew some of the local punks hung out to get stoned and drunk, and I nearly cried with joy when Kaoru turned and invited me to come along. Kisaki said he had somewhere to be, people to talk to, and while I didn’t know my destiny then, I felt an ominous sensation of belonging with them, the five of us walking around like bastard children of Boy George and Dee Snider up the steep hill to the warehouse.

I got so plastered that night, I blacked out, and woke up the next morning on the floor of Kaoru’s apartment, the rest of the band (again, sans Kisaki) filling nearly the whole floor of the small place. I will never remember what transpired that night that eventually led to the decisions that unfolded, but either way, after I had returned home, a few weeks later sealed the deal for where I am now, and could not be happier to be.

So, Kaoru had called and told me Kisaki was thinking about leaving, said he’d give them a month to find someone else, and until then, he’d play out the shows they had booked. I had very proudly agreed to take Kisaki’s place and still had about two weeks of waiting to go before I was supposed to drive down to Tokyo, perhaps permanently, and was ready to finally leave and get out and be happy. _Happy?_ I thought. Well, maybe... I'd be in a band, at least. That particular afternoon, two weeks before my scheduled departure, I was stretched out over my futon and screaming the first few verses of my favorite Buck-Tick song, which was currently blasting from my stereo that my mother kept shouting to be turned down.

"Toshimasa, there's someone to see you!" she shouted over Atsushi's rough, honey-thick vocals, a statement I almost misunderstood as another plea to quiet down, and thus took several minutes to register. Sliding off my bed, I trudged downstairs in untied combat boots to the door, where Mom was standing protectively in front of the slim young man on our porch, ready to slam it in his face should he be someone her darling son, me, shouldn't be associating with. Of course, this was most likely true, but I gestured him in anyway and continued back up the stairs to my room, simply expecting him to follow.

"So, Kaoru-san, why are you here so ear--"

"Pack your things... Kisaki left already, we need you in Osaka tomorrow night or we'll have to cancel a huge show that six scouts are supposed to be coming to." He picked up a half-packed duffle bag on the floor and tossed it on the bed, opening up a drawer and dumping in the contents. "I'm sorry, but we need you."

I just grinned and threw in a few more vitals before zipping up the bag and sliding my bass into its case. "Ready when you are." Kaoru nodded shortly and clambered back down the stairs, going out the door and to his car, popping the trunk for the my things. I could see Die was sitting in the front passenger seat and turned around to wave at me. I waved back before going back up on the porch. "Mom, I'm going, OK? I'll call you when I get to Osaka." Mom had missed the whole packing bit and had been in the kitchen when I’d yelled my goodbyes, and she was running out the door, trying to shout out last farewells as Kaoru pulled the small black car out of the driveway and down the street. Die turned in the seat and I watched home fade away in the smudged back glass of Kaoru's car. Sighing, I turned back around and smiled at Die, whose face I had missed, and was glad to see his chocolate eyes a little more at ease than the last time I had seen him. "Is it a long trip?" I asked him, tossing dark bangs from my eyes.

Die grinned. "Hell of a bore."

I don’t really know why I’m thinking about this now, while Die makes love to me, but I am. All the years I’ve known him are passing through my mind and I know that what we’ve got now must be something good. All that being established, I return you now to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

The “repeat” was rather different from the original event. He thrusted in slow, deep circles, arched over my back, kissing my shoulders and neck and occasionally wrenching my head around to kiss me fully, invading my mouth with his tongue more vigorously than he was invading the rest of me with his cock, a rather nice balance. He was simultaneously thorough and tender, and I had to say, having had him both ways now, Die was… a rather spectacular lover.

We finished in a heap, panting and catching our breath before dragging each other to a shower and then back to the bed, curling up together and falling asleep.

The next day was spent just lounging, and it was pretty obvious at this point that Die and I were progressing towards something more like a relationship than just a sexual tryst. He was constantly touching me, rubbing my hand, kissing my face, touching my hair, and nothing about his affection struck me as off; none of it was unwelcome. All in all, our days off were spent in comfortable relaxation with each other, and the new development between us had given me new energy to finish out recording.

Monday morning, I walked into the studio, Die in tow, and I dropped his hand when I realized that the others probably didn’t need to know until we were a little more sure we would actually be having a relationship and not some emotionally involved fling. Shinya was striding towards me, starting off on something about helping him pack next week, assuming we finished recording on time, and stopped mid-sentence, coffee cup raised in front of him, looking from Die’s hand to mine and back like we were still linked there, and just blinked. “Oh. OH! Wow, um…” Something Shinya hadn’t seen coming? This was big news. As if hearing my thoughts (and he just may have) he rolled his eyes, muttering a ‘whatever’ and took a sip of his coffee. “Didn’t realize you two were such, ah, quick movers.” He shrugged and walked off, sitting with Kaji and listening through the songs we had “finished”. Shinya was about the only one of us Kaoru actually trusted as a second opinion with recording, mostly because they had a very similar ear in the area of cleanness, and Shinya was honest and a minimalist.

Die hiked his brows as if to say “What’s up with _that_ guy, huh?” and went off to find Kaoru, putting his hands on the older guitarist’s shoulders and leaning over him. I couldn’t hear their conversation from here, but I could tell from the body language that while Die was trying to be open and encouraging, Kaoru was… well, Kaoru looked exhausted and pushed and I wondered if he had taken the last two days off, at all. But, there was no bickering, and after their short exchange, Kaoru actually smiled a little and Die went into the booth to record down a few back-up vocal tracks. I loved Die’s voice, though it was not ever really showcased. Kaoru seemed pleased with the takes, but as I watched how he sagged, I wondered if he was really satisfied, or just too exhausted to argue, as ready as the rest of us to just take what we got and finish this thing (though work for Kaoru was apparently never done).

I plopped down on the couch, done recording, but there for moral support, and should I be needed to re-record anything, or whatnot, and Kyo came and sat beside me. I gave him a smile (he looked like he needed a little brightness) and he managed one back, leaning into my shoulder. Though he wasn’t Shinya, Kyo was smarter than he looked, and surprised me a little when he asked, “So you and Die, huh?”

I blinked at him, wanting to deny it, then gave a single nod. “What tipped you off?”

Kyo chuckled, flipping half-interested through a magazine. “Oh, I dunno. The look of satisfaction painted all over his face?” He looked up at me over the top of the article he was possibly reading, possibly staring at trying to distract himself. “He’s been after you for a while, you know that?”

Again, I looked at him, disbelieving. “He told you?”

Another laugh. “He didn’t have to. I know him better than you might think, and he’s got a forehead of glass, really. His eyes conceal nothing.” He waggled one eyebrow conspiratorially and I rolled my eyes at him, leaning over his shoulder and reading the article on the tenth anniversary of a local club, a rather popular venue for smaller bands. From there, the day got pretty boring, because Kyo and I were done, but, if one of us worked, we all worked. Besides, who knew when Kaoru would have a stroke of genius and want to completely re-compose a song, or do add ins or intros, etc.

Most days like this, when the end was in sight and we could all clearly imagine the album done and out, we were all kicked into high gear and excited about working, and Kaoru had found a second (or more like fifth) wind and would have been in a better mood, enlivened at the prospect of a new album being done, now that the journey was all downhill, but the mood of the studio today was dragging, tired, and rather begrudging. The worry that had been eating at me for Kaoru was hungry again, and my eyes kept wandering back to him, watching him.

I was officially concerned when, just three hours in, Kaoru called it a day. He’d finished with Die and, with the exception of touch ups, we were done recording, but Kaoru liked to get things done while he had us all together, but today he seemed exasperated with everything, like he couldn’t get his head in the game and think out what to do and when, and was throwing in the towel for the day. Of course, the old Kaoru appeared when he amended this statement with “You guys can go on, I’m just going to stay for a while.” Shinya announced that he would stay and help, too, taking another sip of coffee, and Kaoru didn’t argue.

I got my things together, Die collecting his things, as well, and Kyo went down to smoke, having decided to wait with Kaoru so they could drive home together instead of one of them having to walk or get a taxi, as they had been doing previous days when Kyo went home before his lover.

I was putting a newspaper lying on one of the “junk” tables into my bag (I read voraciously, trying to keep up with the outside world) and Kaoru stood and stretched, coming over to dig around for something in the stacks of papers and magazines and random crap. I reached over and rubbed his arm. “Whatcha lookin’ for, KaoKao?”

Kaoru leaned heavily into the table, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just… I need more time, alright? I can get it done, it’s just… it’s just finishing things up, putting all the ends together, you know…” He was speaking in rushed, clipped fragments and I could tell he was in a lot of pain, like he couldn’t quite think straight. I shifted my bag a little higher on my shoulder, pursing my lips at him asking “Kaoru, you OK?” and he muttered a little more, rubbed with both hands at his temples. I reached out to touch his shoulder, but he slapped it away, barking “I’m fine!” but he didn’t look fine, took one step away from the desk and swayed and Shinya, across the room and until that point, not even interested, shot up out of his chair and called Kaoru’s name, his black eyes glassy with concern and I knew this was not going to be good. Shinya called Kaoru’s name again, and so did I, but he didn’t seem to be responding, didn’t seem to be able to concentrate at all, like he was confused as to where he was and was having difficulty standing upright. Seeing him like this sent fear through me, thick and heavy, and icy fingers raked through my limbs, my feet rooted to the spot. Shinya took a step towards Kaoru and I could see it in his face that he had seen this coming, had dreamed it, and just hoped he was wrong, knew now he wasn’t.

Shinya was halfway across the space from his desk to Kaoru when, like a marionette with its strings cut, Kaoru collapsed to the floor and stopped breathing.


	9. Recovering Social Losses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shinya presents the final two movements.

The others had left for a while, I had made them go, forced them to head home and get some sleep and something to eat, Toshiya insisting that Kyo come sleep in his guest bed so they could stay together, not wanting to be apart from each other. They hadn’t wanted to leave Kaoru’s side, either, but I knew how to convince them. Kyo, too exhausted to argue, went silently with Die and Toshiya, and I, who had gotten some food earlier and a few hours of sleep on the small couch in the hospital room, sat in the wood and vinyl-covered chair, holding Kaoru’s hand, watching him.

His face was slack and sallow, his hair seemed limp and he was so, so terribly thin under the thread-bare hospital sheet. His hand that I cradled in mine felt frail, like bones in a soft leather glove, and it pained me to see him like this, eased only by the fact that he was _alive_ , that he was _breathing_. The doctor had told me, with an air of congratulations, “If you had not administered CPR, Terachi-san, he would have died before the paramedics arrived; you saved his life!” and I wanted to punch the silly prick right in the neck, because I hadn’t done it for a cookie, I’d done it because I was not going to just stand there and watch one of my closest friends die.

I remember feeling it. I don’t know how, I never know how, haven’t ever tried to justify or explain the things I sometimes just know, I simply trust them. This time, I hoped I was wrong, but kept an eye out for danger. I was sitting across the studio, fiddling around with possible album art that Kaoru had dumped on me when my hands started to feel cold. I rubbed them together, glaring at the AC vent over me, when I realized it wasn’t on, then I saw him. Kaoru, staggering, hands holding his head like he felt as though it might explode and by the time he hit the floor, I was already halfway to him. Toshiya just stood there shaking, his mouth working, trying to find words, but he could hardly even move. Die stood up, dropped his guitar, and dug frantically through his pockets for his phone, was the first one to dial for an ambulance. Kaji shuffled the rest of the small crew out of the way and downstairs to wait for the medics, proving yet again why we kept him around, and Kyo, who was downstairs smoking at the time, must have been told what had happened and came rushing up and into the room.

I was already on my knees next to Kaoru, his dark eyes rolled back in his head, body limp and unbreathing and I kept thinking “Kaoru, I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you! What did you do to yourself?” because surely it wasn’t everyday one went into respiratory arrest. Beyond that mantra, I didn’t think, just counted, one, two, three, four, five, leaned over Kaoru, pinched his nose shut and blew into his mouth, sat up again, pumped the overlapped heels of my hands against his chest, leaned down again, tried to breathe life back into him, though that’s a bit dramatic, because his heart was certainly still beating, but his lungs had decided to stop.

I was vaguely aware of Kyo on his knees beside me, silent and perhaps in too much shock to really understand what was going on and when Kaoru finally gasped and took a breath, though falling immediately back into unconsciousness, I realized Kyo was holding Kaoru’s hand, looking almost calm, just sitting with him, trying to stay strong, trying to _will_ his lover to open his eyes and stand up and say “Geez, guys, I need some sleep!” but Kaoru didn’t. Instead, Kyo and I sat there with him until the medics arrived and checked his vitals, put him on a stretcher, and took him downstairs, into an ambulance, Kyo climbing into the back with him, and I piled Die and Toshiya into my car, following to the hospital.

That was about twelve hours ago and in that time, Kaoru might as well have been on Mars. He had not opened his eyes, had not so much as made a sound or a finger twitch or a heavy sigh or anything. Just laid there, breathing so shallow and so slow you could hardly see his chest rise and fall, the fact that he was alive only evident by the beeping from the machines monitoring him. I cringed to see the needles jabbed in him, the IV trying to rehydrate his system, severely parched, the marks where they had drawn blood from the back of his hand.

I wondered if he was in there somewhere, trapped under big, cotton-ball piles of sedatives, bouncing in slow motion around his subconscious like the gel of a lava lamp, or if maybe in this moment, Kaoru’s body was a vacant shell while his psyche roamed elsewhere. Either way, I didn’t know, and the familiar presence of him that often lingered in the room seemed dim, distant, like a cardboard cut-out posing as the real thing. For the past hour, I’d just been talking to him, stupid stuff, telling him about my cousin’s wedding, and how drunk I had gotten after it, how I had gotten my way under the dress of one of the bridesmaids and she had sounded like a wounded cat while I fucked her, which tipped off the DJ (because we had been fucking in the little room off the side of the sound booth in the place where the reception had been held) and I paid him off to keep his mouth shut. Usually, when I recount my sexual escapades (Kaoru is the only one, really, that I’ll go into detail with) he and I will laugh and laugh until Kaoru is red in the face and begging for me to stop so he can breath again, but there is no laughter, just his slack face, my own voice starting to grate on my nerves and I silenced myself, rubbing his frail, boney hand.

The first time I met Niikura Kaoru, I saw what seemed to be a window and a ceiling and a light that was not turned on, the illumination in the room coming from the window, and the whole thing wavy and distorted and I wanted to draw in a breath, but I was afraid to, and that’s how I know the things I know. They just come to me. Kaoru, at that time, had been going through a bad slope of depression; he hated the rest of his band, he felt like he was no good as a guitarist, he was running out of money, and his boyfriend (whichever one he was dating at the time, there was a new one every week, and somehow, they were all the same) had cheated on him and taken his TV when he left, so that night that he introduced himself after Kyo and I had played our third show together, he had been thinking long and hard about years ago when he had tried to drown himself, and if maybe it would be easier now if he went and threw himself off a dock, seeing as he couldn’t swim. Then, even if his body reacted out of instinct, there wasn’t much hope in keeping his head above water for long. All this, I knew in his handshake and only a minute or two of conversation, but the tone and hurt and strength laced through the impression also made me respect this man, and know that there was far more to him than he gave himself credit. The guys all give me hell (jokingly, of course) about being the only straight one out of the bunch, but if there were ever a man to make me change my mind (and I’ve been very, very drunk with him many, many times, so this is just a hypothetical statement, I know), it would be Kaoru.

Kaoru is a junkie. That’s the only way I can describe his level of passion and drive and commitment, and that addiction to his art, to the perfection of the things that plague his mind at night, it yields great and terrible works that have helped make me very, very wealthy, but it is an addiction none the less. It’s not something we can really make him quit, either. I mean, telling Kaoru to lay off music is like telling someone not to breathe. It is necessary for him. His methods, however, often drive him to the point of destruction, and today his limits had pushed back.

I was lost somewhere in stomach-clenching thought about what would happen if Kaoru didn’t bounce back from this, I mean, another few years and he’d be forty, on his way to being an old man, when would he loose his ability to recover quickly from the way he allowed his obsessive love for this job to essentially destroy him, when the softest sigh bounced like a gun-shot off the sterile walls of the room and I was brought back, my attention turned to Kaoru, whose dark lashes trembled, and finally, his death-colored eyes opened up.

My heart screamed the deepest thanks to any higher power listening and I leaned forward over him, smoothing his hair back from his face. “Kaoru? Hey… you’re finally awake. Do you know where you are, Kaoru? Do you remember what happened?”

He shut his eyes again and took a deeper breath, crinkling his nose at the tubes of oxygen jutting up into his nostrils and smacking sleepily, obviously suffering from a hellacious case of dry mouth. When he spoke, it was difficult to understand him, his deep voice made jagged and hoarse by lack of saliva and use. “Mm… yes. I think? I’m in the hospital, I’d guess. And I… well, I finally just gave out, didn’t I?” His brow furrowed and I could see the apology in his eyes, that he felt so ashamed to do this to us, to make us worry so much for him. The band, I could live without, somehow, but we could not live without each other.

I nodded, squeezing his fragile-feeling hand. “Yes. You just crumpled like a rag-doll, Kaoru. We were all so scared.” I heard my voice hitch, felt my throat go tight, and usually I would have felt indignant at such a display of emotion, but this was Kaoru, and he understood exactly how important he was to me, mostly because I was just as important to him. “They said you were severely dehydrated, suffering from exhaustion, and that it seemed like you hadn’t eaten in maybe four days.”

Kaoru had lifted his right hand to prod at the IV in his left arm, not meeting my eyes. “I--” Tears welled up like a flash flood and poured down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry…” He rubbed his arm to distract himself, but he was shaking with silent sobs. “I never meant to… I mean, I thought I’d be fine, we’re almost done with the album, I figured I’d make it through, but I guess… I guess I just lost track of how long it had been since I’d eaten, since I’d slept…” He sniffed and looked up at me, afraid. “This isn’t Kyo’s fault, though! It isn’t, I’m not his responsibility, I’ve been distant from him, he had no way of knowing I wasn’t eating, it’s not his fault.”

I kissed his brow and sighed, brushing tears away from his cheeks. “None of us blame him. He might blame himself some, but we know it isn’t his fault. Or yours, really. Things just happen like this sometimes. But you have to keep it all in balance, Kaoru! This can’t happen again! Every album, we all hold our breath. We were all really scared, Kao.” I didn’t want to chastise him, I knew he already felt guilty enough, but he needed to feel more than guilty. He needed to feel scared, he needed to know that if he didn’t really watch himself, next time we might be burying him.

I sat and held his hand and he cried himself out for a good ten or fifteen minutes, then collected himself and dried his eyes, looking up at the TV. “What the hell is this shit?”

I laughed. “Oh, ah… Jerry Springer? You see, this man… his wife decided to leave him after he hack-sawed off one of his legs. He looks like he walked right out of the mountains, except for the fact that he has breasts and no legs, and he wants to reconnect with his daughter so that she can be there when he has someone cut off both of his hands.” Kaoru pulled an incredulous face and then began to cackle, holding onto his ribs.

“Oi, oi! Please, cut it off! It hurts to laugh!” I stood up and hit the power button on the TV, coming back and sitting on the edge of the bed, Kaoru taking my hand before I could take his. “Thank you… for staying with me.” He frowned and seemed like he might cry again when he asked, “Where are the others?”

I quickly quelled his obvious sense of abandonment and explained that I had sent them home for rest, but that they had spent hours by his side, Kyo a silent, brooding pillar of worry. “He left these with you,” I told him, indicating the prayer beads looped around Kaoru’s wrist, and Kaoru must have known their profound meaning because he touched them reverently, carefully unlooped them from around his wrist, now boney and delicate, and began to pray with them silently. Kaoru was not particularly religious, but he knew that Kyo was, and I supposed his litany now was in thanks to whatever forces his lover revered for keeping him here a while longer. “Should I call them?”

Kaoru shrugged. “I don’t know… in a way, I don’t want to see them. I… I’m ashamed.” He ducked his head down, hiding behind his hair, but I grabbed him by the chin and made him look at me.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare. You made a mistake, you went too far, but we all _love_ you fiercely and they’ll want to see you. So should I call?” He pulled weakly out of my grasp, but nodded. With a sigh, I stood and went to the door to step out into the hall to call, turning back to him. “Do you want a soda or something?” Again, pouting and dejected, he nodded, and I let him sulk for a while, let him sit in silence with himself while I went to the vending machines to get him a Pepsi and a bag of chips and call Toshiya. I had to call twice to wake him up, but he finally answered sleepily. “Hey. He just woke up. You should come down and see him.”

Toshiya, who had hardly formed words when he’d first picked up the phone, jumped quickly into action. “He’s awake? Good! Oh, good! Yeah, of course! I’ll… I’ll wake Die and Kyo, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” He hung up and I tucked the cold soda can into the crook of my elbow, making one more call before heading back to Kaoru’s room. The woman on the other end of the line was far more composed hearing the news that Kaoru had woken and informed me that she would come by and see him, and thanked me for letting her know.

I closed the door to Kaoru’s room behind me and handed him the soda and chips, which he ate slowly, and when he was done, he seemed to have recollected his thoughts. “I do really stupid things to myself, Shinya.” I noticed his was looking at that damned tattoo, his very first one, and it made me want to laugh, but I didn’t, because I knew he was being serious. “I mean, first of all, I’m surprised all of you have even stayed this long, because I know I’m an asshole in the studio.” I didn’t argue with this. “And then I go and waste away… I forget to eat, I’m too nervous to eat, I’m too nervous to sleep, all I can think is I have to get this song done, I have to re-write that harmony, I’ve got to EQ that last track, it just didn’t settle out the way I wanted, and then…” He trailed off, sighed, sagging against the bed.

“And then you collapse onto the floor and we all stand around you wondering if you’re still alive?”

He turned his face away and grunted something that might have been concurrence or a request for me to fuck off. I knew he had said about all he cared to divulge on the events that had landed him here in the hospital, so I changed the subject, wishing I hadn’t as soon as the words left my mouth. Having thoughts in your head that you didn’t ask to be put there could often turn you into verbal leaking faucet, and something had pinged off Kaoru in his deep subconscious while I had sat and watched him sleep. “Kaoru,” I started, and then, like putting a toe over the state line and calling the place seen, I ventured into dangerous territory, “do you cheat on Kyo, like you did with Die?”

Well, at least he wasn’t upset and pouting anymore. Now he was just furious with me. He turned his crackling eyes to me and glared. “How in the fuck did you know about that?”

I glared right back, but stroked his arm lovingly. “Because you weren’t all that discreet about it. It’s amazing Die never figured it out.”

“And I hope he never does. I hate that I was unfaithful to him, but… well, I don’t have to explain myself to you about Morgan, but for your information, no, I’ve never cheated on Kyo. And I hope to God I never do.” He didn’t _need_ to explain Morgan to me. Shortly after we all formed Dir en grey, Kaoru had met this dashing, charming, terribly attractive American ex-pat in Osaka. Morgan is about six-foot-four, skinny as a rail, with jade-green eyes and long, black hair, chiseled, Renaissance-esque features, luscious full lips, a regal, angular nose… alright, so, I’d go gay for Kaoru, and Morgan, hypothetically, and _literally_ for both of them at the same time. It was obvious why Kaoru had been so weak as to fall for him, but Morgan was flighty and didn’t really believe in commitment, which Kaoru pretended to agree with, and their fling back then turned into sneaking sex with each other after Kaoru and Die had gotten together. Like clockwork, if Die and Kaoru were having a rough spot, Morgan suddenly showed up to say hi and see how we were doing, and for his own sake, I was glad Die is just a twinge stupid, because he never figured it out, obvious as it was, that Kaoru and Morgan had had a long on-again-off-again affair throughout the entirety of he and Kaoru’s relationship. By some grace of God, Morgan hadn’t shown his irrefutably gorgeous face since Kaoru and Kyo had begun dating, and even though I actually thought he was pretty honestly a nice guy, I hoped I never saw him again. Kaoru was glaring at me, still. “Why did you just bring up Morgan? Shit, please don’t tell me you got some premonition that he’s going to show up in my life again. I love Kyo, I do, but Morgan is an addiction for me. I loved Die, too, but you saw how far that got me.”

I shook my head, trying to casually move away from the subject. “No, no, I was thinking more in the past, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I brought it up. Are you still hungry?” He shook his head and asked me if he could please hold my iPod, and this was not an uncommon occurrence with Kaoru, who often would have songs loop through his head and he had to listen to them to get them back out to make room for his own work and to ensure those songs that clung like static to his subconscious did not too blatantly influence what he composed. I dug it out of my bag and he popped the ear buds in, then took one out and handed it to me, scooting to one side of the wide bed and I laid, sitting up, with him as he searched through my songs and found Ben Folds Five. I was surprised, Kaoru didn’t usually listen to this kind of stuff, but he played “Brick” twice before he was satisfied, both of us just lying there with each other, then turned the device off and handed it back to me with a quiet “thank you”. I laid there and held his hand, waiting for him to speak, I could feel his thoughts beating themselves against the inside of his skull, but they never made it out the window of his mouth before the door opened slowly and Toshiya peaked his head in, saw that Kaoru was still awake, and held himself back from running to the bed and throwing himself on the other man, which was obviously what he wanted to do, settling for very carefully leaning down and giving Kaoru a hug and beginning to cry all over again, which he had done off and on for the last twelve hours.

Die and Kyo filed in after, Die going to stand at the foot of the bed, just staring, his jaw set hard. He had been battling a lot of emotions over this. I read Die like a book, “psychic” or not (I didn’t actually use the term for myself, but it was the easiest way I could describe things sometimes), and I could see him struggling with the resonant chords of love that still resounded in him for Kaoru, see him try and grasp some wisp of blame for himself in all this, as he always did, watched the agonizingly helpless feeling of uselessness grab him by the innards and pull, because he was afraid like all of us, but he just stood there, looking frustrated, and I got off the bed so that Kyo could take my place. He climbed up into the space beside Kaoru and I saw Kaoru flinch. The guilt was painted all over his face, he hated thinking about what Kyo must have been going through the hours he had laid there, motionless, but all Kyo cared about right now was that Kaoru was still here with him and awake.

The rest of us tactfully pretended not to notice as Kyo clutched Kaoru to him, kissed his hair and squeezed him maybe a little to hard and, for the first time ever made privy to the rest of us, cried. Not just cried, broke down, shaking with sobs. Kyo held himself in a way that made his short stature easily ignored, his persona compensating for what his size lacked, but as he held onto Kaoru now, trembling and slender, his face twisted in a mask of relief and fear and desperation, he looked like a child. Kaoru was pale, rubbing Kyo’s back and crying some himself and it was clear that this was painful for him, that he felt responsible and a good bit like an asshole because Kyo does not break down, Kyo does not cry (or at least, not in front of people like this), Kyo does not lose control of himself anywhere but the stage, and here he was, doing all of these things because twelve hours ago, he had thought very seriously that he might lose the one person that meant the most to him in the world.

At length, he calmed himself down, kissed Kaoru silly and chastised him for scaring him so badly, but the tone was one of obvious “oh baby, I’m so glad you’re OK”. I had gone around the bed to comfort Toshiya, who was the expected water works and did not disappoint now, and again, I saw anger in Die’s face because three years ago, it would have been him almost losing a boyfriend, and I think that he had thought of it that way, when we were all sitting together in the waiting room, wondering if Kaoru might actually die. I heard Die’s thoughts the clearest, like a radio station. The others were kind of like letting your mind drift and getting weird little snippets pass through, but Die was a strong, clear signal and when I put my hand on his shoulder as he watched the nurses and doctors walk by, waiting for one of them to stop and tell us what was going on with our friend, I could hear him agonizing. _What will I do? If I lose him, what could I possibly do? How could I even think about going on with my life without him? What is there to my life without Kaoru? I still love him, I hate him for this, I still love him so much, I don’t want to lose him._

I took my hand off of his shoulder, I didn’t want to hear anymore, I had my own pain to deal with, my own worry, and I had stood up and went to sit with Kyo, who had removed himself from the rest of us, and held his hand. He, unlike Die, was not silent in his sorrow. He didn’t look at me, but he leaned his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes, telling me plainly, “I would die without him,” and the walls I keep up, the strength I have cultivated within myself so meticulously, cracked a little, and I knew that Kyo probably wasn’t being dramatic or metaphorical. Kyo thrived on love, needed love, and I understood that if a doctor walked up to me just then and started in with “I’m sorry, Terachi-san…” that I might very well end up burying two friends, not just one.

But that’s not how it had happened, because Kaoru had lived and was awake now and would make a full recovery, but it had been a scare, and Kyo clutched onto him and shot off confessions of his love in quick, slurred speech. I watched as he delicately plucked a lock Kaoru’s hair between his index and middle fingers, his long nails stark white against the sleek black. He leaned in, his supple lips parted, his eyes fluttering shut, the lids dark lavender from lack of sleep, kissing Kaoru soundly, trying to tell him in that one intimate and profoundly desperate gesture what he had told me; that he could not live without the other, or at the very least, refused to. He whispered something and I thought I heard him ask Kaoru “Was it freedom that we won?”, but I couldn’t be sure; Kyo sometimes spoke in poetic code to convey things he cannot bring himself to admit more directly, and I could only assume this was one of those instances. For me, because he found it difficult to concede that he needed us, loved us, he would casually inform me that the snowflakes melting on my eyelashes made me look very young and innocent (even in the middle of summer).

When it became obvious that they were not going to make us feel like very awkward third wheels and pulled away from each other a little, Die went to Kaoru and put his arms around him, just holding onto him for a while, needing to be assured the other was really still here. Thankfully, when Die pulled away, it was like the mood in the room had shifted, and the sorrow was tinged gold around the edges with hope. Carefully, we all settled on the bed with Kaoru, talking about silly, useless things so that we didn’t think about serious, important things, serious, important things that we were neglecting right now and that had been interrupted by Kaoru’s sudden collapse. Toshiya told him about a homeless man he’d seen on his drive over to the hospital, wearing a red sequin dress and black pumps that were at least three sizes too big and Kaoru laughed. I loved that sound, and it made my heart clench with joy to hear it now, especially after wondering not too very long ago whether I would ever have the opportunity to hear it again.

After an hour or so, a nurse came in to make sure Kaoru was feeling alright and said that he could go home in a few hours. Kyo looked pleased, smiling slightly and smoothing Kaoru’s hair back from his face like a nervous habit. Die got up to open the door when there was a knock at it, not long after the nurse had left, and he looked out into the corridor with a confused expression, staring at the woman standing there. She seemed familiar to him, though he didn’t know why, but it would all soon become clear. She looked very much like the man lying in the hospital bed, only her features were softened, her black hair cut in a stylish, asymmetrical bob, her clothes, even casual, clearing stating who she was to the world; a business woman, a powerful woman who had climbed her way to the top. I did not know her, really, but I had found her phone number in Kaoru’s medical file, which I had shamelessly flipped through, and decided that she perhaps needed to see him.

Die took a sidestep from the door, blocking it halfway and looked back into the room, wondering if he should let her in. Kaoru squinted at her, trying to bring her face into focus; I wondered if he recognized it now, it had been years since they had seen each other last, but he could surely not forget his sister’s face. His hands shook and shot out, making grabbing gestures in the air at her. “Koro!”

Her severe face, obviously a family resemblance, split in a smile and she went to him, pulled into his arms. Kyo sat up and moved so that Koro could sit next to his lover, who could not stop smiling, though his dark eyes were watery with threatening tears. She settled herself on the bed and laid an affectionate hand on his knee. “Baka, ne? I always knew you’d wear yourself too thin one of these days.” Her voice was raspy and harsh, but there was still a smile on her face.

Kaoru blushed and gave a slight shrug, his shoulder like the industrial bars of scaffolding, slender and minimal under that horrible hospital gown. “I--” He floundered for some words that might justify his current situation, but he shut his mouth, rather smartly, I think. Koro just pat his cheek and opened her purse, pulling out a small box tied with simple twine.

“I brought you these. I’ve been wanting to give them to you for years, but…” She, too, couldn’t seem to find words to justify not seeing her brother, who she obviously loved, so she fell quiet again and Kaoru pulled the knot, opening the box, and somewhere in his face, exhausted and pale as it was just then, I saw the young man I had met almost fifteen years ago. His delicate hands disappeared into the cardboard vessel for a moment, and then lifted out of it an old photo frame and what looked to be a quilt square. His voice shook, but the sounds that left his lips were not words. Koro smiled sadly. “I found them when I moved. I went through all the things from our old house, and I knew you would want something of her.”

Though we all could make some educated guesses, we were curious and left to wonder, but Kaoru waved a hand for us to come closer and look. The frame was tarnished, the glass looking scratched, and the photo was perhaps twenty years out of date, from the late eighties. Three faces, all with the same sad, dark, brutal eyes, like three different drawings of the same person, one male, two female, one old, two young. Kaoru, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, his hair short and dressed in his school uniform, Koro looking similar, and their mother standing behind where they sat on a park bench, one hand laid on a shoulder of each child. It was apparent, even with her sad face and forced smile, that Kaoru’s ethereal beauty, which he staunchly denied having possessed, came from her. He was her very image gone sharp and masculine, his jaw stronger, his lips less bowed. Kaoru stroked the glass along the edges of her face with loving, breathing out the softest “oh”.

Held in his hand against the back of the frame was the quilt square, though as I looked at it more closely, I realized what it was, truly. The texture of the cloth was identical to the shitty textile of Kaoru’s hospital sheet, and a stain marred the aged white, the savage color of iron oxide. Surely, this must be a piece of the sheet his mother had died lying on. It was not unheard of, my aunt had kept her daughter’s blood-stained doll after she had been killed in a car crash, finding it a comfort to have some real essence of her left, as opposed to some morbid reminder of her violent demise. Kaoru thanked his sister, hugging her again and they sat and talked about Koro’s children, pictures being produced, and Kaoru marveled with the slightest hint of envy at how they had grown, obviously unsatisfied with himself for not having been more involved with his niece and nephew, describing seeing the photos of them now like seeing whole new people, remembering them so different, so much younger. Katsuma was almost fifteen, and took after his uncle, surprisingly enough, with a wild, rebellious streak, and Moriko was dainty and very lovely, almost twelve.

Though I enjoyed watching Kaoru’s happiness in spending time with the one real connection he had left to his real self, to who he was on the grander scale of ancestry and what have you, I felt like the four of us were intruding, telling Die quietly that perhaps we should all go downstairs and eat and let them have a little privacy. He nodded, turning to Toshiya, who was holding onto one of Die’s hands with both of his own, and they left the room quietly while I reiterated the suggestion to Kyo. He pursed his full mouth and looked to Kaoru, who gave him an encouraging smile, nodding that it was alright. Kyo sighed, indignant, but leaned forward to kiss Kaoru’s cheek and left the room with me.

We followed Die and Toshiya, walking with their arms around each other, down to the café on the ground floor of the hospital. I insisted on buying everyone a cup of coffee and we sat around quietly looking at each other, unsure where to go from here. The album had to get done, eventually. Contracts and all that. We had to keep moving forward, Kaoru did not allow any loss of momentum, believed perhaps a little too superstitiously that the laws of inertia applied and therefore, any energy that had been pushing us through the album, that we had raised in creating what was a nearly finished record, if it was not quickly re-applied to its original purpose, that energy would not dissipate, but rather superimpose itself on a new host, which usually ended up being the media, in our case. But at the same time, would Kaoru take a few days of TLC and then hit the studio just as hard? Next album, would he learn nothing from this and go balls to the wall, and this time, would he bounce back? We didn’t know, and staring at each other, understanding, in this horrible, sterile place where it is such a hard reality to ignore, that at any moment, we might lose each other, we were so incredibly afraid of not knowing.

I had to get out of here.

Toshiya looked at me incredulously when I stood, put my bag over my shoulder, and wished Kyo luck getting Kaoru back home and told him to make sure he didn’t do a damn thing but lay in bed and watch TV for at least three days. Kyo nodded and managed half a smile, but Toshiya stood up and glared a little. “You’re not staying with us?”

I shook my head and hugged him tightly, rubbing his back, trying to sooth his tight nerves. “No. I didn’t get much sleep, I need to head home. He’s fine now, my worry has ebbed, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some rest and I’ll probably see you guys in a few days.” I squeezed Die’s shoulder on my way out the door and made a phone call on the way to my apartment, going up and taking a shower and putting on clothes that I hadn’t been wearing for about twenty hours straight and the knock on my door was perhaps a little too well-timed just as I was going into the kitchen to grab a beer, my hair now dried and me clean and feeling a little more relaxed.

I opened the door and Aina blinked up at me with her big, dark eyes, her lashes kissing her bronze-colored bangs. She had a face that would make you think she was empty-headed and oblivious, but she had a sharp wit and knew how to deal with me, like so few women did. I don’t date. I don’t have the time, or really the want, but I’m not asexual. In fact, quite the opposite. Toshiya was the first to question me about this, wondering why he never saw me with the same girl twice, wondering why I didn’t want someone to stay with me and love me. I told him that I wasn’t looking for love, I was looking for sex, and if I wanted love, I had the four of them, anyway, and that would always be more than enough. In accordance with this, I’ve made a few rules; I generally fuck dumb girls whose names I don’t know and whose bodies I can use as I like, almost always on a one-time-only basis, which I think I deserve, I mean, I am a fucking rock star, after all. There are certain rude, indecent, bastard-like things you just get permission to do when you sell a lot of fucking records, OK? So, I don’t date the women I fuck, and I try to make that pretty clear, and I rarely see any of them more than once.

But Aina. Well… she’s got me figured out pretty well. She understands I don’t want to date her, she knows I don’t really want to share much of myself with her beyond the physical, and she also knows that she’s the only one whose number I keep and use. I keep waiting for her to fuck up, keep waiting for me to call and her to come over and give me some lovey-dovey bullshit and that’s when I’m going to have to put her clothes back _on_ her, something I’ve never done, and kick her to the curb, because I just refuse to deal with the viscerally awkward bullshit that is that potential situation.

But she hasn’t fucked up yet, and it’s been about a year. When I’m in Tokyo and masturbating just isn’t doing it for me, I call Aina. I’m sure the events I’m about the describe might help explain to you why.

So she’s standing there outside my apartment with her pretty little face that makes her come off as a brainless walking vagina, her ample chest showed off in the button-down, her jeans tight to try and accentuate that she actually has a nice shape to her, her long hair pulled halfway up in a clip and her bangs in her eyes and as she adjusts her bag on her shoulder, she smiles a little at me and says “I heard about Kaoru on the news. I’m glad he’s alright.” She’s good like that, coding the reason I had called her in a casual way, letting me know she understood the games I played, but not being confrontational about it so that I couldn’t get mad at her. I let her in and Yuyu pranced around Aina’s feet as she slipped out of her shoes, her toenails perfect and painted a dark shade of pink with little white stars detailed on each big toe. On her talented and delicate hands, she wore fake nails with French manicures and wore nice, stylish clothes and for twenty-seven, I had to admit to being impressed by how well (and how consistently so) she kept herself up.

Her shoes were off and I’d grunted some sort of response to her comment about Kaoru and here’s the part where I’m reminded why I’m letting this woman into my apartment again, even though every time she leaves I think I can’t do this again, it’s too dangerous, too sticky of a situation, but here she is, standing in my foyer, telling me she’d missed hearing from me and was wondering when I’d call because she knew I had been in town recording for some months now, but she didn’t complain with that, was just making small talk while she took her clothes off.

In maybe a minute she’s standing there naked, looking at me impatiently while I look her over with my arms crossed, her body irresistible and I think to myself, not for the first time, I’m falling into a trap, but the bait is just too good, and to make sure I haven’t forgotten that, she grabs me then by the head, hands in my hair and pulls me down, kissing me roughly while one of her hands fumbles with my belt, her fake nails chittering against the buckle. I usually didn’t allow kissing, either, or at least, kept it to a minimum, but Aina did this thing where she sucked on my tongue while she rubbed my dick through my jeans and teased me so bad I thought I was going to have to throw her on the floor and all but rape her, so I let her kiss me.

Tonight, thankfully, she cut to the chase, left the teasing for later. Her hand finally found its way into my jeans and mine were cupping the soft weight of each breast, thumbs ghosting over her dark nipples. In the back of my mind I already knew this was a mistake, already knew I’d regret it in the morning like I always did, because each time I called her she gained just a little more leverage over me, but at this point, I was already so ready for the sodden-silk heat of her that I didn’t care, would take my chances.

I didn’t want love, I had my friends for that, but this, her body, the way she knew how to drive me absolutely out of my mind crazy because deep down I was just a guy that really wanted a blowjob, this is what made me break my own rules. I risked the demise of the control I kept very immaculately cultivated around my life (control in my own terms, of course), and all over a little fucking. This, alone, should be proof of evolution, or at the very least, a little more evidence towards the instinctual push for passing on genetic lines, even though every time I was with Aina, what of my future children didn’t end up in her stomach (or hair) was discarded with the condom that had captured it.

And this is all the stuff I don’t tell Kaoru about. Sure, I make him laugh, and get a little chuckle myself when he blushes, with my stories about the dumb girls that are shameless enough to let me fuck them in a car parked on the street outside the club where we met, the girls that yell obscene, strange things, the ones that call me ‘daddy’, I’ll share with him how Aina looks up at me when she’s sucking me off and it takes all the power I have not to blow a load at the expression of concentrated lust in her doe-eyes, but I don’t tell him this.

I don’t tell him that sometimes, after she’s done working her magic with my dick and we’ve finished pleasing each other, that I lay next to her in my bed, terrified that I might actually be falling into her trap, that, God forbid and help me, I might actually be falling in love with her.


	10. Welcoming the Progressive Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who got through this old-as-hell mess, thank you. It's hard as a writer to look back at your old work, but there's still some things in this one that I'm pretty impressed with myself by. Enjoy the last piece.

I wish I could say “In this band, there are no secrets!” or “In this band, no one ever feels like they can’t call up anybody else and talk about anything!” but I can’t. There are secrets. Many. I could not pick up the phone and call any of the others and tell them that when I woke up this morning, I could hardly get out of bed, my body ached so much. Kaoru would never call me and tell me that he’s scared because Morgan called last week, said he was thinking about coming back to Tokyo (even though I knew, but that’s beside the point). Toshiya did not pick up the phone years ago and tell any of us how horribly depressed he was, how deep his despair had dug itself, and because of that, we almost lost him.

No, we’re all fortresses, too afraid of ourselves to share with the rest, too scared of the things we play close to the chest and it blocks our hearts from what needs to be nearest, which is of course, each other.

And that’s why in the three weeks since it’s happened and I’ve been back in Osaka, none of the others have been told that Mom had a stroke, and passed away.

I don’t really know how to process it yet. The funeral was quiet, typical, surreal. I stood in the rain with my aunts and wondered, for the first time in my life, why I wasn’t crying. When my dad died, I didn’t need to cry. He’d been nothing but discouraging and cold through my whole life, no love had ever lived in me for that half of my spawning, but my mother, overprotective and suffocating as she often was, had nonetheless been my rock. She was my safety net and at once the reason I strove to distance myself from her, determined to find my own strength and foundation, but I did not realize until now that part of that base, that bedrock, had still been her. I felt precarious now, like the place I stood was shifting sand and at any moment, it could slip and I might come crumbling down.

This is why I don’t call the others. What would I say? “Hi, Toshiya, how are you? Oh? That’s nice. It’s good you and Die are doing well… yes, I’m excited about the album, too. Yes, of course, I’ll be in Tokyo for the release. Hmm? Oh, I’ve been holding in there. Mom died, by the way.” I had no idea how to have that conversation, didn’t understand yet how I was actually handling it. I knew my mother was dead, intellectually. I knew I would never see her again. I knew the rest of my life I would be without my mother. Factually, I knew this, but I did not yet understand, had not yet comprehended what all these things might be like.

In my floundering, lost state I had even thought about calling Aina, needed the comfort, needed to feel another human being next to me that I wasn’t emotionally attached to, but then I thought about it, and seeing as I didn’t want to risk the threatening magnetism of maybe truly having an emotional connection to her I second guessed this urge, so I hadn’t called anyone to comfort me, to help digest losing Mom, and had putzed around my house, alone, for weeks. Everything felt in a fog, like I was moving through water, and it didn’t help that the stress had taken a toll on my already worn body. My muscles ached horribly, bruises flowered unexpectedly, my joints were stiff. I hadn’t even looked at a drum kit in days. In the back of my mind, I wondered how long I had before this thing progressed and I had to stop playing, had no choice because I literally wouldn’t be able to play drums anymore. I was quite certain when that day came, I was going to climb to the top of the highest building I could find and fall off it, but music and the band had taken a back seat in my mind just then.

Right now, and for the weeks since my mother died, since I sat in a hospital for nine days and watched her waste away, the stroke striking hard and fast, but leaving her with just enough strength to suffer, I had been thinking about my childhood. About her.

My aunts had cleaned out Mom’s house, the same house I grew up in, and dropped off a box earlier that morning of my old things that she had kept. I opened it up and went through it, wondering what I was supposed to feel. Tiny pieces of my past sat together, out of context: my X Japan posters, primarily, the battered, dusty snare from my first drum kit. My old school uniform, and juxtaposing that, my first leather mini-skirt which I could had sworn I had hidden somewhere back in the recesses of my closet. A little wooden box of trinkets sat, apart from the rest of the things, at the back corner of the box, and when I opened it, I looked into it, perplexed, wondering if my aunts had made a mistake putting it in with the things they had given back to me. Looking at it, it was a marble, a broken piece of necklace chain, a nondescript guitar pick, a dried, brittle sakura petal, and a little grey stone. Looking at them, they were only objects, but when I touched them, (again the inexplicably wondrous and terrible thing I had been blessed or cursed with) they revealed their mysteries.

The sakura petal turned to powder at my slightest touch, but wafted a feeling of its more obvious nature to me; Mom and I walking in the park, the petals spiraling down, some caught in her hair, and I’m maybe thirteen, holding onto her arm because I was very weak from the last round of meds the doctors had tried on me. She thought she was going to lose me, then, and that simple, quiet walk had been one of the most important moments of her life.

The marble had more hazy impressions; I knew I used to play with marbles when I was very young, but the memory of actually playing with the pieces was faint and staged, but the overlying sense, stronger, was of Mom sitting in her favorite chair, rolling the little glass sphere around her fingers, thinking to herself, as she watched my hair grow down my back and me shoot up like a bean pole, tall and skinny, that I was growing too fast, would be leaving her soon enough, and she missed the little boy that had sat in the floor and played marbles with her.

The necklace chain seemed lifeless compared to everything else. It was just a little piece of me she had wanted; I had come home and we were at dinner and Puppy had jumped up on me, her claw caught in the chain of my necklace and it had broken. Simple, a little keepsake, but it made me feel like a jackass that my own mother felt like she needed to collect keepsakes of me.

The guitar pick was equally dull, but made me laugh. Mom, with her purse held in front of her, on stage before one of our shows in Osaka, sneakily sliding one of Kaoru’s picks off the top of his cabinet and into her purse. She wanted it to show all the other ladies in her book club, to wave around proudly that her son was a rock star now, but was too embarrassed and a little wary at that point of encouraging me too much, still hopeful that I would come to my senses and come home to her and decide that I really wanted to be a doctor or an accountant. Over time, when she opened the box and missed me and rubbed the pick between thumb and forefinger, her resolve that I would not be a doctor or an accountant became less woeful, and I knew that in the end, she was proud of me, fully.

Last was the little stone, a smooth, speckled grey stone that fit in the palm of my hand perfectly, weighted it comfortingly. I should have remembered about this, but I hadn’t, hadn’t really put much thought into the whole exchange, but I felt on the object how much it had meant to my mother, and I stood there, shaking, staring at what I knew intellectually was just an inanimate piece of stone, but in my mind, I saw myself, at seventeen, through my mother’s eyes, putting that stone in her hand. “It’s from the river. A piece of home. _My_ little piece of home. You keep it for me, and I’ll always come back here, OK? I promise. Don’t worry so much! Everything will be fine, it’s just a tour.” I kissed her cheek and she was crying, so afraid to watch me go, having known this moment would come from the moment I was put into her arms, screaming and crying, new to the world outside the warmth of her womb. Though she understood that this was as much a part of parenthood as rearing me had been, she did not know how to do it, could not grasp the idea of letting me go. She loved me too much, needed me too much. I was, after all, the last man in her life. It had been just me and her in the house for almost five years, after dad’s heart attack. Now it would be just her, alone.

I felt her loneliness, even years after the fact of me leaving, the abandonment and isolation she felt when she opened this box and missed her little boy, and my closure, terrible and guilty and iron-clad with definitively irrectifiable regrets, came crashing down.

Since my late teens, I have hardly cried but perhaps a handful of times, and except for the death of my pets, I have never broken down, so it was odd and hard to deal with now, but uncontrollable all the same, as I dropped to my knees and wailed, sobbed, bereaved of a woman that I would never have back.

I cried and cried, laid out on the floor, until I was so exhausted I fell asleep in the middle of the living room and woke again to a dark house. I had to clamber around for lamps, my head aching, my body sore, salt crusted against my cheeks from my tears, my eyes feeling dry and puffy and I mused at how odd it felt for me to have cried, the times in between the events so vast that when I did weep, it felt like a new experience each time. I put the little trinkets back in their wooden box, and that back into the cardboard one with the things from my mother’s house, and carried them into my room, setting them in the closet until I felt like I was strong enough to confront them again.

My cell phone vibrated at me from the dresser as I was crossing the room. Seven missed calls. Two from Toshiya, one from Die, one from Kaoru, and three from Kyo. I sighed, wondering if I should just pretend to have missed that they called, but when I exited my missed calls, there were also three voices mails. Another sigh. I punched in my password and put the phone on speaker, my shoulders too tense to bring it up to my ear just then. Toshiya’s voice was turned harsh through the little speakers. “Shin? Sweetie… Die was flipping through the paper, it’s not all over the news, just tiny blurbs here and there… tell me it’s a joke. Tell me it isn’t true. Shin, it says your mom died.” His voice hitched, and I love him for this, because he cares so deeply. “Shinya, please call me back. Love ya.” The next message was Kyo, his rough voice soft, like always. “Hey, kid… you’ve really got us all on edge, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day. I’m worried about you, kid. Please call one of us back, alright? …Kaoru’s coming down to you. He went to hop the train a few minutes ago, he’s gotta see with his own eyes what’s going on, make sure you’re hanging in there. Just… get in touch with us when you get a chance. Bye…”

I chewed on my lip, thinking that perhaps I should have trusted what I already knew, that I _can_ tell any of them anything, that the only thing inhibiting those conversations and shy calls of SOS is our own sinking fear of weakness, and I was about to call Kyo back when I remembered there was another message and Kaoru’s voice, with a quality of soothing I had never heard in his deep tambour before, started playing. “Shinya, I’m coming down to Osaka. I should be there in a few hours. I’m not going to bitch at you for not calling us, but I just wont let you refuse any comfort. Hopefully you’ll get this before I arrive, I don’t want to get stuck on your porch, it’s cold outside.” He laughed a little and I heard a station announcement somewhere in the background. “I’ll see you soon, kiddo.”

I laughed a little and closed my phone, went to wash my face and put on some clean clothes, something a little warmer, because it was beginning to snow outside now. I went into the kitchen and did the dishes, cleaned up a little, I had become a bit of a slob in my emotional fog, and by the time I was satisfied that my home was clean and was about to call Kyo, or Toshiya, maybe, my phone rang before I could dial out and Kaoru was calling me. I answered and did not even make out a word before Kaoru started in. “Don’t you hang up on me. I’m walking up to your house right now. I’ve walked all the way from the station. Come to the door, I’m almost at your drive.” I sighed and did as I was told, stepping out onto the porch and crossing my arms over my chest immediately. It was bitter cold, and there was Kaoru, turning up my drive from the street, huddled into his jacket.

He was still very thin, and had recently shaved off his goatee, making his face look delicate and gaunt. I flipped on the porch light, my bare toes burning against the frigid stone of the front steps and Kaoru opened his arms to me, wrapped me in his warmth, and murmured that he was sorry into my ear, squeezing me tight against his bony chest. I sighed and rubbed his back, held him because I knew that he needed to comfort me, more than I needed, or more, knew how to accept the comfort, myself. He pulled back and cupped my face, smoothing his fingers over my hair in that strange, patronly way he had with us sometimes, regarding me with a thoughtful, knowing look to his dark eyes, then leaned in and kissed my forehead. I pursed my lips, feeling a little silly, then waved a hand to the open front door. "Come on, then, get inside. It's freezing out here!"

He nodded his agreement and we stepped into the house, Kaoru shivering pleasantly at the warmth, pulling off his jacket and stepping out of his shoes. "Have you called any of the others yet to let them know you're OK?" Yuyu pranced happily around Kaoru's feet and he stooped to pet her.

I rolled my eyes. "No, not yet. And they know I'm fine! I've talked to all of them at least once this week, I just... didn't tell them that..."

He sighed and stood, tossing a lock of his hair, half-way down his back now, over one scrawny shoulder. "No, you didn't tell us. And I know they know you're fine, but they need to hear it from you. Especially Toshiya, you know how he gets. Go on, go give them all a ring, just a quick hello, I'll call Kyo and let him know I'm here." He went off to the mud room at the back of my kitchen, the only place I let any of them smoke in my house when it was too cold out like this, and I obliged his request (or order, more like), going into the bedroom and sitting down rigidly on the edge of the mattress, staring at my phone mistrustfully for a moment. Die and Toshiya lived together, so at least it would most likely only take one call, but I was beginning to feel shitty. Very shitty. I had not told my best friends, the closet people to me, the people in the world I love most, and that love _me_ , that my own mother had passed away. What might they think?

Dejected and already in a defeatist mindset, I hit the speed-dial for Totchi and he picked up in two rings. " _Shin!_ " I had to pull the receiver away from my ear for a moment. "Oh, Shinya, sugar, why didn't you tell us? Are you OK? Is Kaoru there already?”

I rubbed my fingers into the fabric of my jeans nervously, sucking on the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, he showed up just a second ago… I… I don’t know why I didn’t tell any of you. I just… I’m not really sure how to process it yet, I can’t tell you how I’m doing because I don’t know, but… I mean, I guess I’m doing alright.” Toshiya cooed in that doll-baby way he had sometimes, then Die wrenched the phone out of his hand, apparently.

“Shinya! Jesus, this is what people planning to jump in front of a train do! Kid, if you feel smothered by us for a while, it’s your own fault. Real people, ya know, sane ones? They call their friends when their parents die.” I could hear the relief and affection in his voice, despite the fact that he _was_ actually a little mad at me, mostly for worrying him.

I sighed, leaning back on a hand. “I know… I know! I do. I’m sorry, I just… I felt like this was something I needed time to digest and deal with on my own for a little while.”

“Boooooo! Lame excuse!” He sighed heavily, and I could tell he was laughing, was trying, as usual, to find humor to take away the anxiety. “Kid, I love ya, you know that?”

I smiled a tiny bit. “I do, Die.”

“Good… look, Totchi’s about to pull my shoulder out of place trying to get the phone back, so I’ll let you go, but keep us in the loop, alright?”

“Sure thing.” Toshiya came back and chatted with me for a while, doing his aversion technique of seeing how well I held up with light, useless conversation. I think I passed, because after he had discussed how he was thinking about getting a dog, he let me go. I turned my phone off and went into the kitchen to find Kaoru making me a sandwich, the lights low and soothing. I rolled my eyes at him as he pushed me down into a chair and all but forced me to eat, satisfied when only the crust was left.

After I had placed the plate in the sink, I suggested that Kaoru and I should take a walk, I needed the cold air on my skin, and I made him add one of my sweaters to his layers. He was still a little too skinny. We walked under the lamp light, the street mostly empty, few houses, and the snow sloshed in wet, sluggish piles under our feet. It was early in the season yet, and though the air was merry with fluttering, crystalline confetti, the weather was still wet and none of it stuck. I looked up into the black, depthless sky, at once seeming to stretch on forever and then again, perhaps this was all one big movie set, my life, perhaps up above me was not the sky, but the black rafters of a theatre. Either way, the blackness sucked at the light hungrily, and our journey between the street lamps was precarious and empty, catching only hazy shapes of each other in the darkness, feeling each others’ warmth at our sides, occasionally granted the glittery presence of a perfect snow flake catching the light either ahead or behind us for a brief, glistening moment. It felt like the contrast in the world had been turned all the way up.

We reached a neighborhood and turned into it, walking around the nice houses, butted shoulder to shoulder with each other. A few lights burned cheerily from the windows, but most were dark, seeming empty and forlorn, abandoned. Kaoru’s elbow nudged mine and I turned to see his face lit caterwauler yellow in a lamp, his lips pursed, pensive. He’d been stewing on what to say to me this whole time, and we had been walking together for a good half hour by now. I did not prompt him. He could stay silent for now, if I had any say in it, and he did as we circled around to the back of the neighborhood, taking a dark path into a park, which took us again back to my house.

We ended up sitting in the kitchen with candles lit and nothing but the light over the sink on, and I played my favorite jazz album while Kaoru pulled down a bottle of brandy and we sat around drinking in the dimness. He started the conversation, I had been silent, could not muster the strength in myself to find any worth in speaking yet, and when the words left his lips, I was afraid of where this might go, but looking back, surely nothing could have saved me more fully. “My mom had leukemia.” For almost fifteen years, none of us had known that. “She was diagnosed when I was seventeen, I was already out of the house and had called because Koro had been calling around all my old jobs, trying to get in touch with me. I hadn’t seen either of them, or my Nana, in eight months, and had only called to let them know I wasn’t dead yet, or in jail. So I called the house, still thinking of home and my family, my mother, especially, as something that had driven me away, that didn’t want me there, that didn’t love me, or couldn’t, for all the things I was.” I knew he felt weak, telling me these things, but I thought him heroic and strong for admitting those deep buried secrets.

He sat staring into his empty glass for a moment, then poured himself another. “Koro answered and told me I was an asshole, that she was all alone and Mom had just been diagnosed a few days ago and that I needed to get back home and see them, or at least send some money to help. I didn’t go home. I didn’t call again. I didn’t send money.” Another glass of brandy. The death-dark, river-silt color of his eyes had gone watery with shame and regret and fear, perhaps, that I might tell him, like his sister had, that he was an asshole. I didn’t think so, though, and I wouldn’t tell him either way, because I wanted him to continue. “So I waited two wholes years. Koro called me again and said that if I didn’t come home that second, I wouldn’t even be her brother anymore, that she wouldn’t even look at me like a human being, because Mom was dying and all she wanted was to see both of her babies before she went.”

He turned his face away, let his long hair fall in front of it so I couldn’t see his lips twist, his jaw tighten and work for words that would not come easily. “I drove down with the last few dollars I had to my name, and for two days, Koro and me sat around Mom’s bed, playing Pinochle and telling bad jokes with her. She played with my hair and told me that I was beautiful and that she loved me too much to not forgive me for everything… and I knew she must have meant it, because I had done a lot of shit to forgive. When she finally went, I was holding her hand, sobbing, ashamed that I had pushed her away and that in two days, I had had to try and show her the love I had neglected to portray for two years, maybe more, maybe since I was still a little boy that didn’t think his mother was something to be distanced from, and she, a woman who was _dying_ , who was in so much pain, Shinya, she just looked at me and smiled and told me that at least she had had those two days. …Koro and I stayed with her into the night and she passed on sometime around three or four in the morning.” His slender fingers crept across the granite counter top and found my hand, cupped it carefully. “I miss her everyday, Shinya. I hate that I let myself think I wasn’t loved because I was young and I needed independence and I was stupid then, thought her way of keeping me safe was really trying to hold me down, but I got two days with her to let her know that I didn’t hate her, that I would miss her, and I am so lucky for that. Do you understand?” His eyes looked confused, like he didn’t know how to say what he was trying to comfort me with, but I understood, so I nodded and squeezed his hand.

We told stories, happier stories, about our mothers for hours until finally we had most of the bottle gone and we pulled each other up and stumbled, arm in arm, down the hall to my bedroom. I pulled off my clothes and tossed some sleepwear at him, going into the bathroom to attempt to brush my teeth, though I was heavy-headed, both tired and inebriated, and managed to gargle some mouthwash before crawling into bed with Kaoru, who had gotten his way into a pair of my sweatpants and a big t-shirt and already looked like he was fast asleep, curled up on one side of my bed. I pulled back the covers and sidled up against his back, laid a hand over his hip. He hummed and took my hand, tucked my arm tight around him, pressing me flush against his back. His hips were sharp, his shoulder’s hard and knobby, his scapulas jutting into my chest, and though he was warm, it was otherwise uncomfortable to lay with him like this, his body still ravaged, the ultimate structure of him hinted at a little too clearly. In the cold, dark night, my heart went out to Kyo, who held this soft-skinned skeleton night after night, who had held him in his even bonier states, who would always hold him, God willing. It was a challenge to find comfort against his hard angles, but Kyo managed somehow, and I guess, as Kaoru laced his fingers with mine and rolled slightly to be cradled against my chest, I would have to, as well. After all, we loved each other, and love let you forgive a lot.

The snow settled in early that morning, the temperature dropping, and it stayed white and frozen from there on. The first real night of winter. It was beautiful for months, I had always enjoyed colder weather. It reminded me of Chicago, a year or so ago. We had just gotten into town from New York, tired already and a little down, for whatever reason, but when we stepped off the bus, a light, sparkling flurry started, and our spirits lifted, most of our rehearsal time forsaken for playing in the frozen precipitation like children, as opposed to thirty-something professionals, and still yet, the show had been one of the best of the tour.

That’s what I’m thinking about as I’m looking out over Tokyo, the snow still coming down, as it has done off-and-on all night, and the city was sparkling gold and green and red and violet, blow-torch blue, vulgar orange, pornographic pink, every color and all intense, glowing out their electric persistence, and lying down behind the brightness were the more modest, muted colors of the traditional places, nestled cheek-by-jowl with the newest, the most Western, the most culturally relevant. It’s one of the things about my country I don’t think I’ll ever really understand, but I’ve come to love.

It was New Year’s Eve and we had all got it into our heads to do a real kicker of a party, old school. Sinatra had been crooning, either recorded or covered by Japanese Mickey-Blue-Eyes wanna-be’s, for hours, and we were decked out as classy as five children-as-men rock stars could be. I was in a well-cut suit, charcoal grey, violet tie. My hair was pulled up and slicked back, and the others were the same, with felt coats and silk scarves and good shoes. We’d been drinking champagne and high-end whiskey all night, but we weren’t rowdy. On the contrary, we had really taken the whole notion of a classic New Year’s to heart. Currently, from my vantage point by the window, I watched Toshiya and Die flirting quietly, comparing lines on their palms and lengths of fingers or some such, their touches, which at first, as expected, had been lust-laden and playfully, turning more intimate and comfortable. What had been puppy-love and adventurous curiosity in the beginning had settled out into something rather beautiful, and was blossoming, still. It felt good to see love reknitting itself through the five of us, the tension fading to be replaced with something more healthy, something that belonged more. Every family, for surely that was what we were, had its ups and downs, but the down we had seen over the last few years had grown tiresome, and I, for one, was thankful that the last twelve months had been like watching a slow sunrise.

I was briefly distracted by a waitress in a particularly short skirt, milling through the people all dressed in their best, mostly black, money and diamonds, all the things that were so useless and fake, but felt good, at the same time, to be able to have and not worry about where the money came from or where it went. I watched her pale thighs, what stripe of it could be seen between her stockings and her skirt, slide back and forth until she disappeared and my attention came to rest on Kyo and Kaoru, not caring who watched, dancing together in the crowd. Really, I don’t think anyone recognized them anyway, but they didn’t seem to mind if anyone did. At one side, the held onto each other’s elbows, on the other, their hands were clasped, and they were laughing softly and looking at each other adoringly. Kyo seemed to be playfully arguing that Kaoru was trying to lead, and Kaoru was blushing, shy that he could not really dance, but they were enjoying themselves, were lost in each other, thanks not to the champagne, but a truly deep, desperate love they had. Kaoru reached out a hand and brushed it down Kyo’s jaw and the other’s lashes fluttered shut and he smiled softly, his now lonely fingers coming up to wrap around his lover’s wrist and I watched with a strange pride in my heart as Kaoru leaned down and kissed Kyo gently, wrapped his arms around the other and swayed to “Fly Me To the Moon”.

So this is my life. I have all the money I could ever want. I’ve known fame, intimately. I’ve made a name for myself, and music. Years of grueling, hard-birthed music, and fans that would die for me, for us. My mother is gone, but I still, and will always have a family. Surely, as the clock strikes midnight (my namesake, I think a little stupidly), a new era, a funky, uplifting vibe, has settled in over us. We’ve been through several storms together. We’ve rebuilt our lives. We’ve trekked across mountains of pain, and still yet, we continue on, because the company is good and the views are worth it. It’s New Year’s Eve and even though the city is dark, sparkling neon and street lamps and fireworks out across the skyscrapers, it’s just like watching a sunrise, and the warmth feels good, it promises me that there is more warmth, more light, more love to come, because, at least for now, five hearts will never stop beating, not truly.

I sing “Auld Lang Syne” and don’t know what it means, and for the first time, I don’t care, because everything keeps moving on, anyway. Everything continues forward, and I, for one, welcome the progressive order.


End file.
